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THE JONES FAMILY 



CONCERNING 



THE 



JONES FAMILY 



BY 

TIMOTHY TITCOT 

VOUNG PEOPLE," " 
LIFE," ETC., ETC. 



' 



jp.uly- 






NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
743 and 745 Broadway 

1881 

7T 






Copyright by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER 

1863 



Copyright by 
J. G. HOLLAND 






Trow's 

Printing and Bookbinding Company 

201-213 East 12th Street 

NEW YORK 






PREFACE. 



THE form in which this book was originally 
written has never satisfied me. Courteous 
men do not write outspoken letters of condemna- 
tion and counsel to their acquaintances, and 
although my men and women were men and 
women of straw, I owed them polite treatment, 
to say the least. So I have entirely rewritten 
the book, transforming the letters into sketches 
of personal types, and thus doing away with the 
seeming discourtesy and impertinence of the 
previous form of direct address. I believe that 
all that was valuable in the book has been re- 
tained, and that the articles of which it is com- 
posed will be read with more profit and pleasure 
in consequence of the change. 

New York, 1881. 



CONTENTS. 



DEACON SOLOMON JONES. 

PAGE 

The Consideration of His System of Family Gov- 
ernment, . i 



MRS. MARTHA JONES, WIFE OF DEACON SOLOMON. 
Concerning Her System of Family Government, . 14 

F. MENDELSSOHN JONES, SINGING-MASTER. 

Concerning the Influence of His Profession on 
Personal Character 27 

HANS SACHS JONES, SHOEMAKER. 
Concerning His Habit of Business Lying, . . 42 

EDWARD PAYSON JONES. 

Concerning His Failure to Yield to His Convic- 
tions of Duty, 54 



viii Contents. 

MRS. JESSY BELL JONES. 

PAGE 

Concerning the Difficulty She Experiences in 
Keeping Her Servants . 67 

SALATHIAL FOGG JONES. 

Concerning the Faith and Prospects of His Sect 
of Religionists 80 

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN JONES, MECHANIC. 

Concerning His Habitual Absence from Church 
on Sunday, 94 

WASHINGTON ALLSTON JONES. 

Concerning the Policy of Making His Brains 
Marketable • . . . 106 

REV. JEREMIAH JONES, D.D. 
Concerning the Failure of His Pulpit Ministry, . 119 

STEPHEN GIRARD JONES. 
Concerning the Best Way of Spending His Money, . 133 

NOEL JONES. 

Concerning His Opinion that He Knows Pretty 
Much Everything, 146 

RUFUS CHOATE JONES, LAWYER. 

Concerning the Duties and Dangers of His Pro- 
fession 158 



Co7itents. ix 

MRS. ROYAL PURPLE JONES. 

PAGE 

Concerning Her Absorbing Devotion to Her Own 
Person, 172 

MISS FELICIA HEMANS JONES. 

Concerning Her Strong Desire to Become an 
Author 186 

JEHU JONES. 

Concerning the Character and Tendencies of 
the Fast Life which He is Living, . . . 199 



THOMAS ARNOLD JONES, SCHOOLMASTER. 

Concerning the Requirements and the Tendencies 
of His Profession 211 



MRS. ROSA HOPPIN JONES. 

Concerning Her Dislike of Routine and Her 
Desire for Change and Amusement, . . . 224 



JEFFERSON DAVIS JONES, POLITICIAN. 

Concerning the Immorality of His Pursuits, and 
Their Effect Upon Himself and His Country, . 236 



DR. BENJAMIN RUSH JONES. 

Concerning the Position of Himself and His Pro- 
fession 250 

DIOGENES JONES. 
Concerning His Disposition to Avoid Society, . 264 



x Contents. 

SAUL M. JONES. 

PAGE 

Concerning His Habit of Looking upon the Dark 
Side of Things, 274 



JOHN SMITH JONES. 

Concerning His Neighborly Duties and His Fail- 
ure to Perform Them, 285 



GOODRICH JONES, JR. 

Concerning His Disposition to be Content with 
the Respectability and Wealth which His 
Father has Acquired for Him, .... 297 



CONCERNING THE 



JONES FAMILY. 



DEACON SOLOMON JONES. 

THE CONSIDERATION OF HIS SYSTEM OF FAMILY 

GOVERNMENT 

DEACON SOLOMON JONES is now an old man, 
and I do not expect that anything that I shall write 
about him will do him any good. I only seek, through 
what I say concerning him, to convey useful hints and 
lessons to others. It would not be a pleasure to me 
to wound his self-love, or to disturb the complacency 
which he entertains amid the wreck of his family hopes. 
It is not delightful to assure him that his life has been a 
mistake from the beginning, and that his children owe 
the miscarriage of their lives to the training which he 
still seems to regard as alike the offspring and parent of 

Christian wisdom. If there were not others in the world 
i 



2 Concerning the Jones Family. 

who are making the same mistake that he has made, 
and moving forward to the same sad family disaster, 
there would be no word from me that he could shape 
into a reproach. But he will soon pass away, with the 
comforting assurance that his motives, at least, were 
good ; and to these, his only comforts, I commend him. 
He was once the great man of Jonesville. He then 
deemed it necessary to maintain a dignified deportment, 
to take the lead in all matters of public moment, to 
manage the Jonesville church and the Jonesville minis- 
ter, and to exercise a general supervision of the village. 
There was not a man, woman, or child in the village 
who did not feel his presence as that of an independent, 
arbitrary power, that permitted no liberty of will around 
it. He had his notions of politics, religion, municipal 
affairs, education, social life ; and to these he tried to 
bend every mind that came into contact with him. He 
undertook to think for his neighbors, and to impose 
upon them his own law in all things. If one inde- 
pendent man spoke out his thoughts and refused to be 
bound to his will, that man was sure of persecution. 
Deacon Jones beset him behind and before by petty 
annoyances. He took away his business, and sneered 
at him in public and private. In this way Deacon 
Jones banished from Jonesville many men who would 
have been an honor to it, and finally alienated from 
himself the hearts of his own kindred. He drove the 
whole village into opposition to himself. He forced 






Deacon Solomon Jones. 3 

them to a self-assertion that manifested itself in a multi- 
tude of offensive and improper ways. If he opposed a 
harmless dance at a neighbor's house, the villagers re- 
venged themselves by holding a ball at the tavern. It 
took only a few years of his peculiar management to 
fill Jonesville with doggeries and loafers, and to prove 
to him that his village management had been a sorry 
failure. 

He seems to have conducted life upon the assumption 
that all the men in the world, with the exception of 
Deacon Solomon Jones, were incapable of self-govern- 
ment. It never seemed to occur to him, in any dispute 
with a neighbor, or in any difficulty which arrayed the 
public against him, that he could possibly be in the 
wrong ; and it always has offended him to think that 
any other Jones, or any other man, should dare to con- 
trovert his opinions or question his decisions. And he 
was so stupid that, when all his neighbors — after much 
long-suffering and patient waiting upon his whims — re- 
belled against him, and went to extremes to show their 
independence of and contempt for him, he attributed 
the work of his own hands to the devil. 

The Lord gave to Deacon Solomon Jones a respecta- 
ble quantity of brains, and Yankee enterprise got him 
money. Had there been proper management on his 
part, Jonesville would be in his hands to-day ; but he 
must be aware that by far the larger proportion of his 
fellow-citizens either do not love him, or that they posi- 



4 Concerning the Jones Family. 

tively hate him. How has this state of things been ar- 
rived at ? Certainly not by his having been as wise as 
a serpent and harmless as a dove. He can hardly be- 
lieve that the loss of his influence is attributable rather 
to the popular than to his own personal perverseness. 
I do not expect to make him see it, but he really did his 
best to make slaves of his fellows ; and his fellows, recog- 
nizing him as a tyrant, kicked over his throne, and 
tumbled him into his chimney-corner, where alone he 
had the power to put his peculiar theories into practice. 

A man does not usually have one set of notions con- 
cerning neighborhood government and another concern- 
ing family government. He managed his family very 
much as he undertook to manage his village. I can, in- 
deed, bear witness that he gave his family line upon line 
and precept upon precept ; but I am not so ready to 
concede that he trained them up in the right way. His 
family was an orderly one, I admit ; but I have seen jails 
and houses of correction that were morb orderly still. 
An orderly house is quite as liable to be governed too 
much, as a disorderly house is to be governed too little. 

I always noticed this fact with relation to his mode of 
family training. He enforced a blind obedience to his 
commands, and never deemed it necessary or desirable 
to give a reason for them. Nay, he told his children, 
distinctly, that it was enough for them that he com- 
manded a thing to be done. He refused to give them a 
reason beyond his own wish and will. He placed him- 



Deacon Solomon Jones. 5 

self between them and their own consciences ; he placed 
himself between them and their own sense of that which 
was just and proper and good ; nay, he placed himself be- 
tween them and God, and demanded that they should 
obey him because he willed it — because he commanded 
them to obey him. 

It is comparatively an easy thing to get up an orderly 
family, on such a plan of operations as this. A man 
needs only to have a strong arm, a broad palm, and a 
heart that never opens to parental tenderness, to secure 
the most orderly family in the world. It is not a hard 
thing for a man who weighs two hundred pounds, more 
or less, to make a boy who weighs only fifty pounds so 
much dread him as to obey his minutest commands. In- 
deed, it is not a hard thing to break down his will en- 
tirely, and make a craven of him. The most orderly 
families I have ever known were the worst governed ; 
and one of these families was that of Deacon Jones. He 
is not the first man who has brought up "an orderly 
family," and fitted them for the devil's hand by his sys- 
tem of government. 

I know the history of his children, and in many re- 
spects it is a bad one and a sad one. He governed 
them. He laid his law upon them. He forced upon 
them his will as their supreme rule of action. They did 
not fear God half so much as they feared him; though, 
if I remember correctly, he represented God to be a 
sort of infinite Deacon Solomon Jones. They did not 



6 Concerning the Jones Family. 

fear to lie half so much as they feared to be flogged. 
They became hypocrites through their fear of him, and 
they learned to hate him because he persisted in treat- 
ing them as servile dependents. He put himself before 
them and thrust himself into their life in the place of 
God. He bent them to his will with those strong hands 
of his, and he had "an orderly family." 

When I think of the families that have been trained 
and ruined in this way, I shudder. The children of 
Deacon Jones were never permitted to have any will ; 
and when they went forth from his threshold, they went 
forth emancipated slaves and untried children in the 
use of liberty. When they found the hand of parental 
restraint removed, there was no restraint upon them. 
They had never been taught that most essential of all 
government, self-government ; and a man who has not 
been taught to govern himself is as helpless in the world 
as a child. A family may be orderly to a degree of 
nicety that is really admirable, and still be as incapable 
of self-government as a family of idiots. Families that 
might be reckoned by thousands have left orderly homes, 
all prepared for the destruction to which they rushed. 

The military commander knows very well that he says 
very little as to the moral character of his soldiers when 
he says they are under excellent discipline. The drill 
of the camp may make the camp the most orderly of 
places, but this drill does not go beyond the camp, or 
deeper than the surface of the character. Take from 



Deacon^ Solomon Jones. J 

the shoulders of these soldiers the strong hand of mili- 
tary control, and you will have — as ordinary armies go 
— a mass of swearing, gaming, drinking rowdies, ready 
to rush into any excess. The state prison is the most 
orderly place in the world. The drill is faultless. I 
know of no place where, among an equal number of men 
gathered from the lower walks of society, there are so 
few breaches of decorum ; yet, when the inmates reap- 
pear in society, they are not improved. Deacon Jones 
undertook to introduce a military drill, or prison drill, 
or both, into his family ; and he failed precisely as gen- 
erals and wardens fail. He never recognized the fact 
that the essential part of a child's education is that of 
teaching him the use of his liberty, under the control of 
his sense of that which is right and proper and laudable 
in human conduct. He did not undertake to develop 
and enlighten that sense at all. He managed his chil- 
dren, instead of teaching them how to manage them- 
selves. He never appealed to their sense of honor, or 
to their sense of right or propriety, as the motive to any 
desirable course of conduct ; and when he placed his 
command upon one of them, and that one dared to ask 
after the reason, he was crushed into silence by the as- 
surance that he had nothing to do with the reason. 

It is not uncommon to hear the assertion that the sons 
of ministers and deacons turn out badly. Statistics 
show that the statement is too broad, yet common ob- 
servation unites in giving it some basis in truth. It is 



8 Concerning the Jones Family. 

not at all uncommon to see the children of excellent 
parents — children who have been bred in the most 
orderly manner — going straight to destruction the mo- 
ment they leave the family roof and cease to feel paren- 
tal restraint. These parents feel, doubtless, very much 
as Deacon Jones did, that it is all a mysterious dispensa- 
tion of Providence, while it is only the natural result of 
their style of training. 

I know of public institutions for the reform of vagrant 
children, that are celebrated for the delightful manner 
in which those children are brought to square their con- 
duct by rule. They march like soldiers. They sing 
like machines. They enter their school-room in silent 
files that would delight the eye of an Indian warrior. 
They recite in concert the most complicated prose and 
verse. They play by rule, and go to bed to the ringing 
of a bell, and say the Lord's prayer in unison. And 
they run away when they can get a chance, and steal, 
and swear, and cheat, and prowl, and indulge in ob- 
scene talk, as of old. I know of other public institutions 
of this kind that have no rule of action except the gen- 
eral Christian rule within it. The children are taught to 
do right. They are instructed in that which is right. 
Their sense of that which is true and good and pure and 
right and proper is educated, developed, stimulated, 
and thus are the children taught to govern themselves. 
They govern themselves while in the institution, and 
they govern themselves after they leave it. It is impos- 



Deacon Solomon Jones. 9 

sible to reform a vicious child without patiently teaching 
that child self-government. All the drill of all the mas- 
ters and all the reformers in the world will not reform a 
single vice of a single child ; and this show of juvenile 
drill that we meet with in schools and charitable institu- 
tions is frequently — nay, I will say generally — a most 
deceitful thing — the specious cover of a system of train- 
ing that is terribly worse than useless. If dogs could 
talk, they could be taught to do the same thing in 
the same way ; but they would hunt cats and bark at 
passengers in the old fashion when beyond the reach of 
their master's lash. 

Deacon Jones's mode of family training has intro- 
duced me to a field of discussion as wide as it is im- 
portant. It relates to public institutions as well as to 
families, and to nations as well as to public institutions. 
The people of America have been indulging in dreams 
of democracy in Europe ; but these dreams do not come 
to pass, and are not likely soon to be realized. The 
people of Europe have been governed. They know 
nothing about self-government, and, whenever they 
have tried the experiment, they have usually failed. 
That which alone imperils democracy in this country is 
the loss of the power of self-government, and that which 
alone prevents the establishment of democracy in Eu- 
rope is the lack of that power. The governing classes 
of Europe will take good care to see that that power be 
not developed. 



io Concerning the Jones Family. 

But I return to this matter of family government, and 
I imagine that I am asked whether I intend to sneer 
at orderly families. I answer, not at all. There must 
be, without question, more or less repression of the ir- 
regularities of young life, and of such rough passions as 
sometimes break out and gain ascendancy in certain 
natures ; but this should be exceptional. I do not 
sneer at orderly families, but I like to see order growing 
out of each member's sense of propriety, and each mem- 
ber's desire to contribute to the general good conduct 
and harmony of the family life. I like to see each child 
gradually transformed into a gentleman or a lady, with 
gentlemanly or ladylike habits, through a cultivated 
sense of that which is proper and good. I know that 
children thus bred — taught from the beginning that they 
have a stake and a responsibility in the family life — 
used from the beginning to manage themselves — are 
prepared to go out into the world and take care of 
themselves. To them home is a place of dignity, and 
they will never disgrace it. To them liberty is no new 
possession, and they know how to use without abusing 
it. To them self-control is a habit, and they never 
lose it. 

I have often wondered whether Deacon Jones knows 
what a child is. I have wondered if he thinks whence it 
came and whither it is going — whether it ever occurred 
to him that any one of his children is a good deal more 
God's child than it is his. I have wondered whether he 



Deacon Solomon Jones. 1 1 

ever happened to think that it came from heaven, and 
that it is more his brother than his child. I doubt 
whether he has ever thought anything of the kind. He 
has never dreamed that his children are his younger 
brothers and sisters, intrusted to him by their common 
Father for the purposes of protection and education. 
He certainly has never treated them as if they were. 
He has not a child in the world whose pardon he should 
not ask for the impudent and most unbrotherly assump- 
tions which he has practised upon it. Ah ! if he could 
have looked upon his sons as his younger brothers and 
his daughters as his younger sisters, patiently borne 
with them and instructed them in the use of life and 
liberty, and built them up into a self- regulated man- 
hood and womanhood, he would not now be alone and 
comfortless. A child is not a horse or a dog, to be con- 
trolled by a walking-stick or a whip, under all circum- 
stances. There are some children that, like some dogs 
and horses, have vicious tendencies that can only be 
repressed by the infliction of pain ; but a child is not a 
brute, and is not to be governed like a brute. A child 
is a young man or a young woman, possessing man's or 
woman's faculties in miniature, and is just as sensitive 
to insult and injury and injustice as in after years. 
Deacon Jones has insulted his children. He has treated 
them unreasonably, and he ought not to complain if 
they hold him in dislike and revengeful contempt. 

He never did anything to make his children love 



12 Concerning the Jones Family. 

him, and he cannot but be aware that, the moment they 
were removed from his authority, he lost all influence 
over them. Why could he not reclaim that son who 
madly became a debauchee and disgraced his home 
and tortured his heart ? Because he had never won 
that son's love, or given him better motives for self- 
restraint than his own arbitrary will. He had been gov- 
erned from the outside, and never from the inside ; and 
when the outside authority was gone, there was nothing 
left upon which Deacon Jones had power to lay his 
hand. Why did that daughter elope with one who was 
not worthy of her ? She did it simply because she 
found a man who loved her and gave her the considera- 
tion due her as a woman — a love and a consideration 
which she had never found at home, where she was re- 
garded by her father as the dependent servant of his 
will. She was nothing at home ; and, badly as she 
married, she is a better, a freer and a happier woman 
than she would have been had she continued in her 
home. These children of Deacon Jones went astray — 
not in despite of his mode of family training, be it under- 
stood, but in consequence of it. If I should wish to 
ruin my family, I would pursue his policy, and be meas- 
urably sure of the desired result. 

It is not pleasant for me to write these things ; but I 
am writing for the public, and can have no choice. 
I must say to all who read these words, that, if they do 
not get the hearts of their children, and build them up 



Deacon Solomon Jones. 13 

in the right use of a liberty which is no more theirs after 
they leave their homes than it is before, they will be to 
those children forever as heathen men and publicans. 
If these children take the determination to go to de- 
struction, they will go, and nothing that their parents 
can place in their way can save them. A child must 
have freedom, within limits which a variety of circum- 
stances must define,* and be taught how to use it, and 
made responsible for the right use of it. It is in this 
way that self-government is taught, and in this thing 
that self-government consists. All children, on arriving 
at manhood and womanhood, should be the self-gov- 
erned companions and friends of their parents ; and on 
their going out into the world, or losing parental con- 
trol, they should not feel the transition in the slightest 
degree. No child is trained in the right way who feels, 
when he steps forth from the family threshold — an inde- 
pendent actor — any less restraint than he felt the hour 
before. If he does, he is in danger of falling before the 
first temptation that assails him. 



MRS. MARTHA JONES, 

WIFE OF DEACON SOLOMON. 

CONCERNING HER SYSTEM OF FAMILY GOVERN- 
MENT. 

[SUPPOSE I have thought of Mrs. Martha Jones ten 
thousand times within the last twenty years. I 
never see a clean kitchen, or a trim and tidy housewife, 
or an irreproachable " dresser," with its shining rows of 
tin and pewter, or a dairy full of milk, or a cleanly raked 
chip-yard, or polished brass andirons, flaming with fire 
on one side and reflecting ugly faces on the other, or 
catch a savory scent of breakfast on a frosty morning, 
or see a number of children crowded out of a door on 
their way to school, without thinking of her. Thriving, 
busy, exact, scrupulous, neat, minute in her supervision 
of all family concerns, striving to have her own way with- 
out interfering with the Deacon's, she has always lingered 
in my memory as a remarkable woman. She sat up so 
late at night and rose so early in the morning, that it 
seems as if she never slept. There was a chronic alert- 
ness about her that detected and even anticipated every 



Mrs. Martha Jones. 15 

occurrence in and around the house. Not a door could 
be opened or a window raised in any part of the house, 
however distant it might be, without her hearing and 
identifying it. Not a voice was heard within the house 
at any time of the day or night that she did not know 
who uttered it. Her soul seemed to have become the 
tenant of the whole building, and to be conscious of 
every occurrence in every part of it at every moment. 
She not only knew what was going on everywhere within 
it, but every part spoke of her presence. 

She had a curious way of maintaining the family har- 
mony without the sacrifice of her own sense of inde- 
pendence. She really carried on a very independent 
life within certain limits. She was aware that, in the 
matter of will, the deacon, her husband, was very obsti- 
nate, and that she could never hope to dispute his em- 
pire. So she shrewdly managed never to cross him 
where the course of his will ran the strongest, and to be 
sure that no one else crossed him. I remember very 
well her look of amazement and reproof when she heard 
me treat with apparent irreverence some of his most 
rigidly fixed opinions, and assail prejudices which she 
knew were as deeply seated as his life. I enjoyed her 
look of amazement quite as much as I did the deacon's 
anger, for it seemed to me a very justifiable bit of mis- 
chief to break into a family peace that was maintained 
in this way. By humoring and indulging her husband, 
in all matters over which he saw fit to exercise authority, 



16 Concerning the Jones Family. 

and by so closely attending to everything else that he 
did not think of it, she kept him in a state of self-com- 
placency, and was the recognized queen of a wide 
realm. 

As I look back upon her life, I find but little to blame 
her for. Wherever her errors have been productive of 
mischief, they have been errors of ignorance — mistakes 
— possibly excusable in the circumstances under which 
they were committed. She loved her children with all 
the tenderness and devotion of a good mother, but, in 
her anxiety that they should not cross their father's will, 
and provoke his displeasure, she became but little better 
than an irksome overseer to them. She knew that if 
there was anything that her husband insisted on, it was 
parental authority. She knew that the strict ordering 
of his family was his pet idea, and that his family 
government, in the fullest meaning and force of the 
phrase, was his hobby. This pet idea — this hobby — 
she made room for in her family plans. She knew that 
he was often unreasonable, but that made no difference. 
She knew that his will ran strongest in that direction, 
and she made it her business to see that as few obsta- 
cles lay in his path as possible. On one side stood the 
deacon's inexorable laws and rules and will, by which 
his children, of every age, were to square their conduct. 
On the other stood her precious children, with all the 
wilfulness and waywardness of children — with all their 
longing for parental tenderness and indulgence — with 



Mrs. Martha Jones. 17 

moods which they had never learned to manage, and 
tempers which they did not know the meaning of ; and 
she became supremely anxious that the deacon should 
not be provoked by them to wrath, and that they should 
escape the consequences of his displeasure. 

Well, what was the consequence ? This ceaseless 
vigilance which she had learned to exercise over every 
portion of the household economy, she extended to the 
bearing and conduct of her children. She exercised 
over them the strictest surveillance. She carried in her 
mind and in her manners the dread of a collision between 
them and their despotic governor. She tried to save 
him from irritation and them from its consequences. She 
kept one eye on him and another on them, and nothing 
in the conduct of either party escaped her. Her chil- 
dren, as they emerged from babyhood, grew gradually 
into the consciousness that they were watched, and that 
not a word could be uttered, or a hand lifted, or a foot 
moved, without a degree of notice which curtailed its 
liberty. It was repression — repression — nothing but re- 
pression — everywhere, for them. No hearty laugh, or 
overflowing, childish glee, or noisy play for them, for 
fear that the deacon might be disturbed ! 

At last, every child she had, in addition to the fear of 
its father, came to entertain a dread of its mother. I 
think her children loved her, or would have loved her, 
had they not associated her forever with restraint. If 
they played, she was near with her everlasting " hush ! " 



1 8 Concerning the Jones Family. 

If they sat down at table, they knew that her eye was 
upon them — that she watched the position of every head 
under the deacon's long "grace" — the passage of every 
mouthful — the manner in which they asked every ques- 
tion and responded to what was said to them — the 
amount of food and drink consumed — everything. They 
felt themselves wrapped up in — devoured by — a vigilant 
supervision that took from them their liberty and their 
will, and with them, all feelings of self-respect and self- 
possession. 

It is not the opinion of her neighbors that either she 
or her husband has had anything to do with the ruin of 
their children. The deacon was so strict and so efficient 
in his family government, and she was so scrupulously 
careful in everything that related to their manners at 
home and away, that they did not imagine it possible 
that any bad result could naturally flow from such train- 
ing. I do not say that they are mistaken from any wish 
to blame her, but I must speak the truth about her. 
Her minute watchfulness and censorship exercised over 
these children until she became to them God, con- 
science, and will, were just as fatal to a manly and wo- 
manly development as the deacon's irresponsible com- 
mands. A boy that feels that every word of his mouth 
and every movement of his body is watched by one 
whose eye never sleeps, and whose hand is ever ready 
to repress, becomes at last a coward or a bully. There 
are natures which will not submit to this surveillance ; 



Mrs. Martha Jones. 19 

and when these become weary of the pressure, they 
kick it aside, and parental restraint — associated with all 
that is hateful in slavery — is gone forever. 

Under the peculiar training and home influences to 
which her children were subjected, there were but two 
things that they were likely to become, viz. : rebels or 
cravens. Her children were naturally high-spirited, like 
the deacon and herself, and they became rebels. Other- 
wise, they would have carried with them through life the 
feeling that whatever show they might put on — however 
much they might struggle against it — they were under- 
lings. There are some men and some women, probably, 
who, living through a long life under favorable circum- 
stances, recover from this early discipline of repression, 
and this abject slavery of the will, but they are few. 
They must be few. The negro who has once been a 
slave cannot, one time in a hundred, refuse to take off 
his hat, or bow, to a white man. He is never at home, 
when placed on an equality with him. He carries in his 
soul the badge of servility, and he can no more thrust it 
from his sight or banish it from his consciousness than 
he can change the color of his skin. This is not because 
he is a negro, simply, but because he has been a slave — 
because he has been trained up to have no will, and to 
be controlled under all circumstances by the wills of 
those who had him in their power. 

A child can be made the slave of a parent just as thor- 
oughly as a negro ever was made the slave of a white man, 



20 Concerning the Jones Family. 

and such a child can be just as everlastingly damaged 
by parental or family slavery as a bondsman can be by 
any system of bondage. A child can be made as mean, 
and cowardly, and deceitful, and devoid of self-respect, 
by a system of management which puts a curb upon 
every action, as the devil himself could possibly desire. 
This system of watchful repression, and minute supervi- 
sion, and criticism of every action, among children, is ut- 
terly debilitating and demoralizing. Mrs. Jones intended 
no harm by it. Under the circumstances, it was a very 
natural thing for her to do ; but I think she can hardly 
fail to see that, unwittingly, she perfected the work 
of destruction in her children which the deacon so 
thoroughly began, and for which he would have been, 
without her assistance, entirely sufficient. Oh ! when 
will the world learn that children are neither animals 
nor slaves ? When will the world learn that children — 
the purest, sweetest, noblest, truest, most sagacious 
creatures in the world — with a natural charter of liberty 
as broad as that enjoyed by the angels — should be 
treated with respect? When shall this idea that all 
legitimate training relates to the use of liberty — to the 
acquisition of the power of self-government — become 
the universal basis of family policy ? 

What do I mean by this ? Well, I will try to explain, 
or illustrate, my meaning. I remember a gathering at 
the house of Mrs. Jones — a party of friends — to which 
her children were admitted ; and I remember with pain- 



Mrs. Martha Jones. 2 1 

ful distinctness the telegraphic communication which 
she maintained with them during the whole evening. If 
James got his legs crossed, or, in his drowsiness, gaped, 
or if he coughed, or sneezed, or laughed above a certain 
key, or made a remark, or moved his chair, it was : 
" James, h — m ! " — " James, h — m ! " — "James, h — m ! " 
And James was only one of half a dozen whom she 
treated in the same way. She began the evening with 
the feeling that she was entirely responsible for the be- 
havior of those children — just as much responsible as if 
they, severally, were the fingers of her hand. She 
acted as if they were machines which, for the evening, 
she had undertaken to operate. They felt that they 
were under the eye of a vigilant keeper, and they did 
not dream of such a thing as acting for themselves. 
They were acting for her, and they did not know until 
they heard her suggestive " h — m ! " whether they were 
right or wrong. She undertook for the evening to be to 
them in the stead of their sense of propriety ; and the 
communication between them and her being imperfect, 
they often offended. I know that her good sense will 
tell her now that this is not the way gentlemen and 
ladies are made. 

I was recently in a family circle where I witnessed a 
most delightful contrast to all this — where the sons and 
daughters were brought up and introduced to me by the 
father and mother with as much politeness and cordiality 
as if they were kings and queens every one, and with as 



22 Co7iceming the Jones Family. 

much freedom as if the parents had not the slightest 
doubt that the children — from the oldest to the youngest 
— would bear themselves like ladies and gentlemen. 
There was no forwardness on the part of these children, 
as may possibly be supposed ; yet there was perfect self- 
possession ; and each child knew that he stood upon his 
own merits. I suppose that if any one of these children 
had indulged in any impropriety during this interview — 
as not one of them did — he would have been kindly told 
afterward, by one of the parents, what he had done, and 
why he should never repeat it. The children of Mrs. 
Jones were always awkward in company, and for the 
simple reason that they did not know whether they were 
pleasing her or not. They had no freedom, and were 
guided by no principle. Her will was their rule, and 
her will, so far as it related to all the minutiae of beha- 
vior, was not thoroughly known ; so they were always 
embarrassed, and always turning their eyes toward her. 
Her entire system of management was based on distrust, 
while that of the family with whom I contrast hers was 
founded on trust. Her children, while she could possi- 
bly keep her hold upon them, were never permitted to 
outgrow their petticoats, while those of the other family 
alluded to were put upon their own responsibility just as 
soon as possible. Is there any doubt as to which system 
of treatment is best ? 

Perhaps, among those who read this essay, there may 
be those who think that parental authority cannot be 



Mrs. Martha Jones. 23 

maintained without its constant and direct assertion. 
If so, let them be sure that they are mistaken. I have 
known families that possessed fathers and mothers who 
were honored, admired, loved, almost worshipped — - 
fathers and mothers whose children dreaded nothing so 
much as to give them pain — yet these same children 
knew no such word as fear, and would have been utterly 
ashamed to render the assertion of parental authority 
necessary. Parents and children were friends and com- 
panions — the children deferring to the opinions and 
wishes of the parents, and the parents consulting the 
happiness and trusting the good sense and good inten- 
tions of the children. Whenever I hear a young man 
calling his father " the old man," and his mother " the 
old woman," I know that the old man and the old 
woman are to blame for it. 

If the children of Mrs. Jones had turned out well, it 
must have been in spite of a system of training which 
was so far from being education as to be its opposite. 
There was no inner life organized ; there was no build- 
ing up of character ; there was no establishment in each 
child's heart of a bar of judgment — no exercise in the 
use of liberty ; but only restraint, only fear, only slav- 
ery. 

I do not entertain those opinions of one variety of dis- 
orderly families which Mrs. Jones and the deacon seem 
to have entertained all their lives. I have never yet 
seen the house where children were happy that did not 



24 Concerning the Jojies Family. 

show evidences of disorder ; and a man is a fool, or 
something worse, who quarrels with this state of things. 
Where children have playthings, and where they play 
with them, there must necessarily be disorder, and fur- 
niture more or less disturbed and defaced, and noise 
more or less disagreeable, and litter that is not highly 
ornamental. And before children have had an opportu- 
nity to learn propriety of speech and deportment — be- 
fore they are educated — there will be in their conduct, 
in play-room and parlor alike, more or less of irregular- 
ity and extravagance. Remarks will be made that will 
shock all hearers ; sudden explosions of anger will oc- 
cur, with other eccentricities of conduct that need not 
be named. There are remedies for all these — in time. 
When, in the course of their education, the sense of 
propriety is stimulated and strengthened, and pride of 
character is developed, these irregularities will disap- 
pear and an orderly family will be the consequence, 
each child having become its own reformer. 

There was a feature of Mrs. Jones' family government 
(which she held in common with her husband) that 
made still more complete the slavery of her children. 
It was the deacon's opinion that a boy who was not too 
tired to play at ball, or slide down hill, or skate, was 
not too tired to saw wood, and it was his policy to direct 
all the excess of animal life which his boys manifested 
into the channels of industry and usefulness. She sec- 
onded this opinion, and maintained that a girl 4 who was 



Mrs. Martha Jones. 2$ 

not too sleepy to make a doll's hat, or a doll's dress, 
was not too sleepy to hem a handkerchief, or darn a 
stocking. So her children never had what children call 
"a good time." Always kept at work when possible, 
and always restrained in every exhibition of the spirit 
of play, home became an irksome place to them, and 
childhood a dreary period. Her children were never 
permitted to do anything to please themselves, in their 
own way. Everything was done — or she insisted that 
everything should be done — to please her, in her way. 
If one of her daughters sat down to rest, or resorted to a 
little quiet amusement, she stirred her at once by some 
petty command, I was often tempted to be angry with 
her, because she would never give her children any 
peace. She had always something for them to do, and 
something that had to be done just at the very time 
when they were enjoying themselves the best. 

" Precept upon precept" is very well, in its way, but 
principle is much better. The principle of right and 
proper acting, fully inculcated, renders unnecessary all 
precepts ; and until a child has fully received this prin- 
ciple he is without the basis of manhood. The earlier 
this principle is received, and a child thrown upon his 
own responsibility, and made to feel that he is a man, 
lacking only years to give him strength and wisdom, the 
safer that boy is for time and for eternity. The mo- 
ment a boy becomes morally responsible, he becomes 
in a most important sense — a sense which she and the 



26 Concerning the Jones Family. 

deacon never recognized — free. I do not say that he is 
removed from parental control or rational restraint, but 
that it is the business of the parent to educate him in 
the principle of self-government. A boy bred thus, be- 
comes ten times more a man than a boy bred in a way 
whicb has seemed best to Mrs. Jones ; and when he 
goes forth from the parental roof he goes forth strong, 
and able to battle with life's trials and temptations. 
Children long for recognition — to do things for them- 
selves, to be their own masters and mistresses. Their 
play is all based on the assumption that they are men 
and women, as, in miniature, they are ; and, insisting 
on the right use of liberty and teaching them how to use 
it, they should have it restrained only when that liberty 
is abused. 



F. MENDELSSOHN JONES, 

SINGING-MASTER. 

CONCERNING THE INFLUENCE OF HIS PROFES- 
SION ON PERSONAL CHARACTER. 

IONCE heard the most renowned and venerable of 
all the professors of music in this country say that 
he always warned his classes of young women to beware 
of singing men, and, with equal emphasis, warned his 
classes of young men to beware of singing women. He 
alluded, of course, to professional singers, and I have 
too much respect for his Christian character to suppose 
that he was not thoroughly in earnest. The statement 
will not flatter the self-conceit of singing men and 
women, but it brought to my mind, immediately, the 
history of Mr. F. Mendelssohn Jones, the singing-mas- 
ter. He was what people call a bright boy. He was, 
indeed, what I should call a clever boy. He was quick, 
ingenious, graceful, skilful ; and his father and mother 
told me, with evident pride, and in his presence, that he 
had a remarkable talent for music. " Felix Mendelssohn 
could sing," they said, "and carry his own part before 



28 Concerning the Jones Family. 

he was three years old." And Felix Mendelssohn was 
brought out on all possible occasions, to display his 
really respectable gifts as a singer, and was brought out 
so often, and was so much praised and flattered, that, 
before he was old enough to know much about anything, 
he had conceived the idea that singing was the largest 
thing to be done in the world, and that Felix Mendels- 
sohn Jones had a very large way of doing it. 

Twenty years have passed away, and where is he 
now ? He is a singing-master, with a limited income 
and a reputation rather the worse for wear. He has 
never been convicted of any flagrant acts of immorality, 
but men and women have ticketed him " doubtful." 
Judicious fathers and mothers are careful not to leave 
their daughters in his company. Ladies who prize a 
good name above all other possessions, do not permit 
themselves to be found alone with him. There are 
stories floating about concerning his intrigues, and the 
jealousy and unhappiness of his wife. Everybody says 
that he is an excellent singer ; that he understands his 
business, etc. ; but all add that he knows nothing 
about anything else ; that they would not trust him the 
length of their arm ; that he is a hypocrite and a scape- 
grace ; that he ought to be horsewhipped and hissed out 
of decent society ; that it is strange that any respectable 
man will have him in his family ; and a great many other 
ugly things which need not be related. I am aware that 
he has warm friends ; but not one among the men, unless 



F. Mendelssohn Jones. 29 

it may be some poor fellow whose wife's name has been 
coupled with his in an uncomfortable way. Wherever 
he goes, there are always two or three women who be- 
come his sworn partisans — women who have his name 
constantly on their lips ; who will not peaceably or 
without protest hear his immaculateness called in 
question — women who, somehow, seem to have a per- 
sonal interest in establishing the uncompromising rigid- 
ity of his virtue. I do not think very highly of these 
women. 

Felix is a handsome man, and how well he knows it ! 
He is a " dressy" man. There is no better broadcloth 
than he wears, and no better tailor than he employs. 
He is as vain as a peacock, and selfish beyond all calcu- 
lation. A stranger, meeting him in a railroad-car, or at 
a hotel, would not guess the manner in which he gets 
his money, and least of all would he guess that in his 
home, where he is a contemptible tyrant, his wife sits 
meanly clad, and his children eat the bread of poverty. 

I have asked myself many times why it is that he and 
a large class of singing men and singing women are thus 
among the most worthless of all human beings. One 
would suppose, from the nature of the case, that he and 
they would be among the purest and noblest men and 
women in the world. Music is a creature of the skies. 
It was on the wings of music that the heaven -born song 
— "Peace on earth! good-will to men" — came down, 
and thrilled Judea with sounds that have since swept 



30 Concerning the Jones Family. 

around the world. It is on the breath of music that our 
praises rise to Him, whose life itself, as expressed in the 
movements of systems and the phenomena of vitality, is 
the perfection of rhythmical harmony. It is music that 
lulls the fretful infant to sleep upon its mother's bosom ; 
that gives expression to the free spirit of boyhood when 
it rejoices upon the hills ; that relieves the tedium of 
labor ; that clothes the phrases by which men woo the 
women whom they love ; and that makes a flowery 
channel through which grief may pour its plaint. It 
stirs the martial host to do battle in the cause of God 
and freedom, and celebrates the victory; and "with 
songs" as well as with " everlasting joy," we are told, 
the redeemed shall enter upon their reward at last. 
Why, one would suppose that no man could live and 
move and have his being in music, without being subli- 
mated, etherealized, spiritualized by it — kept up in a 
seventh heaven of purity and refinement. 

This may all be said of music in general, but to me 
there seems to be something peculiarly sacred in the 
human voice. There is that in the voice which tran- 
scends all the instruments of man's invention. It is 
one of God's instruments, and cannot be surpassed or 
equalled. It is the natural outlet of human passion ; 
the opening through which — in love and hate, in grief 
and gladness, in desire and satisfaction — the soul 
breathes. It pulsates and trembles with that spiritual 
life and motion which are born of God's presence in the 



F. Mendelssohn Jones. 31 

soul. It is not only the expression of all that is human 
in us, but of all that is divine. 

One would suppose, I repeat, from the nature of the 
case, that all professional singing men and singing 
women would be among the purest and noblest and best 
men and women in the world ; but, on the contrary, 
Felix Mendelssohn Jones is the mean and miserable 
profligate I have already charged him with being, and 
many of his associates are like him. In saying this, I 
do not mean to wound the sensibilities of some singing 
men and women who do not belong to his set. I know 
truly Christian men and women who have devoted their 
lives to music, but they are in no danger of being con- 
founded with the crowd and class I have condemned. 
They despise that class as much as I do, and regret, as 
much as I do, the facts which have associated music 
with so much that is mean and unworthy in character 
and conduct. 

It is interesting to study into the causes of this wide- 
spread immorality and worthlessness among those who 
make singing the business of their lives. In the case of 
Felix, and in many others, personal vanity has had 
more to do than anything else. He was bred from the 
cradle to a love of praise His gift for music was mani- 
fested early, and his parents undertook to exhibit him 
and secure praise for him throughout all the years of his 
boyhood. He grew up with a constant greed for admi- 
ration, and this grew at last into a passion, which has 



32 Concerning the Jones Family. 

never relinquished its hold upon him. He became vain 
of his accomplishment, and vain of his personal beauty, 
and vain of his whole personality. He has been singing 
in church all his life, and giving voice to the aspirations 
and praises of others, but, probably, there has never, in 
all that time, gone up from his heart a single offering to 
Him who bestowed upon him his excellent gift. He 
has, during all his life, on all occasions, sung to men, 
not to God. As his voice has swelled out over choir 
and congregation, he has been only thoughtful of the 
admiration he was exciting in the minds of those who 
were listening, and has always been rather seeking 
praise for himself than giving praise to his Maker. 

This love of admiration and praise has been, then, 
the mainspring of his life ; and no man or woman can 
be decent with no higher motive of life than this. 
With this motive predominant, he has grown superla- 
tively selfish. He refuses to share his earnings with his 
wife and children, because such a policy would detract 
from his personal charms, or his personal comforts. He 
quarrels with every man of his profession, because he is 
afraid that the man will detract somewhat from the 
glory which he imagines has settled around him. His 
mouth is constantly filled with detraction of his rivals. 
In the practice of his profession, he is thrown into con- 
tact with soft and sympathetic women, who are charmed 
by his voice, and his face, and his style, and his villa- 
nously smooth and sanctimonious manners, and they be- 



F. Mendelssohn Jones. 33 

come easy victims to his desire for personal conquest. 
Thus his music becomes to him only an instrument for 
the gratification of his greed for admiration, and, among 
other things, a means for winning personal power over 
the weak and wayward women whom he encounters. 

Life always takes on the character of its motive. It 
is not the music which has injured him : it is not the 
music which injures any one of the great brotherhood 
and sisterhood of vicious genius. There are those 
among musicians who can plead the power of great 
passions as their apology for great vices. No great 
musician is possible without great passions. No man 
without intense human sympathies in all directions can 
ever be a great singer, or a great musician of any kind ; 
and these sympathies, in a life subject to great exalta- 
tions and depressions, lead their possessor only too 
often into vices that degrade him and his art. But 
Felix is not a great musician, and I doubt very much 
whether he has great passions. I think he is a diddler 
and a make-believe. I think his vices are affectations, 
in a considerable degree, and that he indulges in them 
only so far as he imagines they will make him inter- 
esting. 

There is something very demoralizing in all pursuits 
that depend for their success upon the popular ap- 
plause. We see it no more in public singing than in 
acting, and no more in acting than in politics. I doubt 

whether there are more singers than politicians ruined 
2* 



34 Concerning the Jones Family. 

by their pursuits. A man who makes it the business of 
his life to seek office at the hands of the people, and 
who administers the affairs of office so as to secure the 
popular applause, becomes morally as rotten as the rot- 
tenest of the musical profession. 

I never hear of an American girl going abroad to 
study music, for the purpose of fitting herself for a pub- 
lic musical career, without a pang. A musical educa- 
tion, an introduction to public musical life, and a few 
years of that life, are almost certain ruin for any wo- 
man. Some escape this ruin, it is true, but there are 
temptations laid for every step of their life. They find 
their success in the hands of men who demand more 
than money for wages. They find their personal charms 
set over against the personal charms of others. Their 
whole life is filled with rivalries and jealousies. They 
find themselves constantly thrown into intimate associa- 
tions on the stage with men who subject themselves to 
no Christian restraint — who can hardly be said to have 
a Christian education. They are constantly acting in 
operas, the whole dramatic relish of which is found in 
equivocal situations, or openly licentious revelations. 
In such circumstances as these, a woman must be a 
marvel of modesty and a miracle of grace to escape 
contamination. I do not believe there is a woman in 
the world who ever came out of a public musical career 
as good a woman as she entered it. She may have es- 
caped with an untarnished name — she may have pre- 



F. Mendelssohn Jones. 35 

served her standing in society, or even heightened it, 
but in her inmost soul she knows that the pure spirit of 
her girlhood is gone. 

It is the dream, I suppose, of most women who under- 
take a musical career that after winning money and 
fame, they shall settle down into domestic life grace- 
fully, and be happy in retirement. Alas ! this is one 
of the dreams that very rarely " come true." The greed 
for popular applause, once tasted, knows no relenting. 
The public life of women unfits them for domestic life, 
and the contaminations of a public singing woman's po- 
sition render it almost impossible for her to be married 
out of her circle ; so that a woman who spends ten years 
on the stage usually spends her life there, or does worse. 
I do not wonder at the old professor's warning against 
singing women, or singing men. It is enough to break 
down any man's or woman's self-respect to depend for 
bread and reputation upon the applause of a capricious 
public — to devote the whole energies of one's being to 
the winning of a few clappings of the hand and a few 
tossings of the handkerchief, and to feel that bread, and 
success of the life-purpose depend upon these few clap- 
pings and tossings. 

I have a theory that it is demoralizing to pursue as a 
business any graceful accomplishment which is only in- 
tended to administer to the pleasure and recreation of 
toiling men and women. I have not read history cor- 
rectly if it be not true that the artists of all ages have 



2,6 Concerning the Jones Family. 

been generally men of many vices. There have been 
men of pure character among them always, but, as a 
class, they have not been men whom we should select 
for Sunday-school superintendents, or as husbands for 
our daughters. If Felix Mendelssohn Jones had been a 
tailor, and had worked hard at his business and only 
used his talent for music in the social circle and the vil- 
lage choir on Sunday, and been just as vain as he is to- 
day, he would have been a better man than he is now, I 
think. I think this devotion of his life to music has had 
the tendency, independently of all other influences, to 
make him intellectually an ass and morally a goat. 

Whether there is soundness in this theory or not, 
singing as a pursuit must come under the general law 
which makes devotion to one idea a dwarfing process. 
A man who gives his life to music and becomes absorbed 
by it — and who really knows nothing else, will necessa- 
rily be a very small pattern of a man. The artist is de- 
veloped at the expense of the man. Music is thrown 
entirely out of its legitimate and healthy relations to his 
life, and he makes that an object, or end of life which 
should only minister to an end far higher. When a man 
undertakes to clothe his manhood from materials fur- 
nished by a single pursuit, even when that pursuit is so 
pure and beautiful as that of music, he runs short of 
cloth at once. I have no doubt that one of the principal 
reasons why music has such a dwarfing effect upon a 
multitude of those who make it the pursuit of their lives, 



F. Mendelssohn Jones. 37 

is, that it is so fascinating and so absorbing — that it 
possesses such a power to drive out from the mind and 
life everything else. There is no denying the fact that, 
in the eye of a practical business man, musical accom- 
plishments in men are regarded as a damage to charac- 
ter and a hinderance to success. It is pretty nearly the 
universal belief that a man who is very much devoted to 
music is rarely good for anything else. This may not be 
true — I doubt whether it is strictly true — but it is true 
enough, and it has always been true enough to make it a 
rule among those who have no time for nice distinctions 
and exceptional cases. 

I do not wonder that Felix Mendelssohn Jones is in- 
tellectually a dwarf. I do not wonder that men who 
have nerve and muscle and common sense, and prac- 
tical acquaintance with the great concerns of life, and a 
share in the world's earnest work, should hold him in 
contempt for other reasons than those which relate to 
his morals. What did he ever study besides music ? 
Upon what subject of human interest is he informed 
except music ? Upon what topic of conversation is 
he at all at home unless it be music ? Why is it 
that he has nothing to say when those questions are 
discussed which relate to the political, moral, social, 
and industrial life of the race or nation to which he 
belongs ? No man has a right to be more a musi- 
cian than a man, and no musician has the right to com- 
plain when men who are men hold him in contempt be- 



38 Concerning the Jones Family. 

cause he is the slave of an art of which he should rather 
be the kingly possessor. There is a vast deal of non- 
sense afloat in the world about being married to music, 
or married to art, as if music were a woman of a very- 
seductive and exacting character, and musicians were 
very gallant and knightly people who make it their busi- 
ness to bend before a lifted eyebrow, and follow the 
fickle swing of petticoats to death and the worst that 
follows it. 

There is another cause that has operated to make him 
much less a man than he might have been under other 
circumstances, and this is almost inseparable from his 
life as a public singer. His life has been a vagabond 
life. He, in his humble way, passing from village to vil- 
lage, has only had a taste of that dissipation of travel 
which the more famous members of his profession are 
obliged to suffer. From the time a public singer begins 
his career until he closes it, he has no home. He is 
never recognized as a member of society. He is obliged 
to be all things to all men everywhere. He has no na- 
tionality. He shouts for the stars and stripes in New 
York, but would just as easily shout for the stars and 
bars wherever they float. He is equally at home in 
England and France and Italy, and salutes any flag 
under which he can win plaudits and provender. He 
has no politics, he has no religion, " to mention," he 
has no stake in permanent society whatever. The in- 
stitutions of Christianity, public schools, educational 



F. Mendelssohn Jones. 39 

schemes and systems, the great, permanent charities, 
municipal and neighborhood life — he has no share in all 
these. He runs from country to country and from capi- 
tal to capital, or scours the country, and does not cease 
his travels until life or health or voice is gone. It is im- 
possible for any man to be subject to such dissipation as 
this without receiving incalculable damage of character. 
He can think of nothing but his profession under these 
circumstances. He can have no healthy social life, no 
home influences, no recognized position in religious and 
political communities. He can be nothing but a comet 
among the fixed stars and regularly revolving systems of 
the world, making a great show for the rather nebulous 
head which he carries, occupying more blue sky for the 
brief period than belongs to him, and then passing out 
of sight and out of memory, leaving no track. 

I might go further, and show how nearly impossible 
it is for a public singer, who sings everything every- 
where, who wanders over the world and lives upon the 
breath of popular applause, whose life seems almost 
necessarily made up of intrigues and jealousies, to be 
a religious man. No matter what the stage of the thea- 
tre or the platform of the concert-room might be, or 
may have been ; we know that now they are not the 
places where piety toward God is in such a state of 
high cultivation that good people throng before them for 
religious motive and inspiration. The whole atmos- 
phere of a public singer's life is sensuous. Like the 



40 Concer7ii?ig the Jones Family. 

beggarly old reprobate in Rome who obtained a living 
by sitting to artists for his " religious expression," they 
coin their Te Deums into dollars, and regard a mass as 
only a style of music to be treated in a professional way 
for other people who have sufficient interest in it to pay 
for the service. Man is a weak creature, and it takes 
a great many influences to keep him in the path of relig- 
ious duty, and preserve his sympathy with those grand 
spiritual truths which relate to his noblest development 
and his highest destiny. These influences are not to be 
secured by a roving life, and constantly shifting society, 
and ministering to the tastes and seeking the favor of 
the vulgar crowd. 

On the whole, I do not wonder that Mr. Felix Men- 
delssohn Jones is no better than he is. He has really 
had more influences operating against him than I had 
considered when I began to write this essay. Never- 
theless, he ought to be ashamed of himself and institute 
a reform. He ought to recast his life. If he cannot 
settle down permanently in his profession in some town 
large enough to support him, and become a decent hus- 
band to his wife and a faithful father to his children, 
and take upon his shoulders his portion of the burdens 
of organized society, let him quit his profession and 
go into some other business. I know that he furnishes 
a very slender basis for building a man upon, but he 
can at least cease to be a nuisance. 

I know a good many musical men and women whom 



F. Mendelssohn Jones. 41 

music or devotion to music has not damaged ; but 
these men and women have entered as permanent ele- 
ments into the society in which they live, and are 
something more than musicians. Singing is the most 
charming of all accomplishments when it is the voice of 
a noble nature and a generous culture ; and all music, 
when it preserves its legitimate relations to the great 
interests of human society, is refining and liberalizing 
in its influence. But when music monopolizes the mind 
of a man ; when it becomes the vehicle through which 
he ministers to his personal vanity ; when it either be- 
comes degraded to be the instrument for procuring his 
bread, or elevated to the position of a master passion, 
it spoils him. I pray that no friend or child of mine 
may become professionally a singing man or singing 
woman. All the circumstances that cluster around such 
a life, all the influences associated with it, and the great 
majority of its natural tendencies are against the devel- 
opment and preservation of a Christian style of life and 
character and, consequently, against the best form of 
happiness here and the only form hereafter. 



HANS SACHS JONES, 

SHOEMAKER. 

CONCERNING HIS HABIT OF BUSINESS LYING. 

Y shoemaker, Mr. Hans Sachs Jones, has always 
seemed to me to be an anomalous sort of person- 
age. On the street, he is a respectable and decent man. 
I would take his note for any sum he would be likely to 
borrow, and rely upon its payment at maturity. Nay, 
I would accept his word of honor at any time, when he 
has his coat on his back and the wax is off his fingers, 
with entire confidence. He has been entrusted with re- 
sponsibilities in civil and social affairs, and has never be- 
trayed them. He is a good husband, father, friend, and 
citizen, but he stands behind his counter from morning 
until night, and lies as continuously and coolly as if he 
were a flowing fountain of falsehood. He will not assail 
me in the street, because I so plainly tell him this, for 
he knows it is true, and that I like him too well to in- 
sult him. He knows, as well as I do, that he never 
made a pair of boots for me that did not cost him more 
lies than they cost me dollars. 



Hans Sachs Jones. 43 

I have stood before him, on some occasions, thor- 
oughly astonished at the facility and ingenuity and bold- 
ness with which he lied his way out from among the 
fragments of his broken engagements. The glibness of 
his tongue, and the candor of his tone, and the immova- 
ble sincerity of his features, and the half-discouraged, 
half-wounded expression of face and voice with which 
he apologized for his failure to keep his pledges, were 
really overwhelming. I have sometimes wondered 
whether he did not suppose he was telling the truth — 
whether he had not, by some odd hallucination, come to 
believe that the causes of his failure to keep his pledges 
had a real and permanent existence. Never was so much 
sickness suffered by journeymen shoemakers as by his. 
Never had shoemakers such sickly children, and never 
had shoemakers so many children born to them. It is 
a strange fatality, too, that always keeps his best work- 
men on a spree. I have never known any class of arti- 
sans drink so much as those he employs. He is always 
getting out of the right kind of leather at the wrong 
time, or suffering by some occurrence that renders it 
impossible for him to keep his promise, and, at the 
same time, make just such a pair of boots or shoes as he 
feels particular about making for his particular custom- 
ers. He resorts to the most transparent flattery to keep 
his patrons good-natured, but there is not a man or 
woman who enters his shop who believes a word he 
utters. Day after day, and week after week, his prom- 



44 Concerning the Jones Family. 

ises are broken with regard to a single job, and his 
patrons smile in his face at the excuses which his tongue 
holds ready at all times ; and he knows that they know 
that he is lying. 

He is not a sinner in this respect above all shoemakers, 
and shoemakers are not sinners in this respect above 
all artisans and tradesmen. He happens to be a very 
perfect specimen of a class of men who work for the 
public in the performance of essential everyday jobs in 
the various mechanical arts. They do not all lie as 
much as he does, but many of them lie in the same way, 
and for the same reason. They are not all as cool about 
it as he is, but lying is their daily resort. 

Now, what is there in his business or in the relations 
to society of that class of employments to which he be- 
longs, to develop the untruthfulness which all must 
admit attaches to it in some degree ? In the first place, 
he began business in a very small way, and was able 
to keep his promises, never making any that he did not 
intend to keep. Business increased, and he found 
among his best customers — those whose patronage he 
most desired to retain — a degree of unreasonable impa- 
tience which he could not withstand. He was imperi- 
ously urged into the making of pledges for the delivery 
of work which he could not make, consistently with his 
previously existing engagements. He was desirous to 
please ; strong wills, backed by money, were brought 
to bear upon him ; the keeping of his promise looked 



Hans Sachs Jones. 45 

possible, even if not altogether practicable ; and he 
promised. He felt, however, that somebody was to be 
disappointed, and he undertook to find an excuse which 
would lift the burden of blame from his own shoulders. 
He did not dare to stand before his customer a volun- 
tary delinquent ; so when his customer came, and he 
was not ready to see him, he justified himself by throw- 
ing the blame upon others, or upon circumstances over 
which he had no control. The customer may have be- 
lieved him at first, but his faith soon wore out. 

The shoemaker learned, at length, that people liked 
to have their work promised early, and that they would 
take his apologies for failure good-naturedly ; and he 
ran into the habit of promising work early, with the ex- 
pectation, if not the direct intention, to break his prom- 
ise. I have given him jobs when I knew he lied while 
taking them, and expected to lie a great many times be- 
fore he finished them. He has told me repeatedly that 
work was nearly finished when I knew that it had not 
been begun ; and all this for the purpose of pleasing me, 
and saving himself from blame. He was not naturally 
untruthful, and he is not untruthful now where his busi- 
ness is not concerned, but in his business he has made 
falsehood the rule of his daily life. His promises are 
always in advance of his power to perform, and the 
breaking of them has become habitual. 

It is painful to see a man — otherwise so respectable — ■ 
unreliable in the place where men meet him most ; for 



4o Concerniitg the Jones Family. 

it weakens his hold upon the popular regard, and cannot 
fail to depreciate his own self-respect. He must feel 
ashamed, at times, to realize that his word is not be- 
lieved, and to know that he has not a customer in the 
world who feels at all sure about getting work done by 
him until it really is done and in his hands. The kind 
of life he leads must also be an exceedingly uncomfort- 
able one. Now there is not the slightest necessity for 
this, and there is no apology for it. It had a very natu- 
ral beginning, but he ought to have learned long ago 
that it was not requisite either to his prosperity or to his 
comfort. He gets his work in spite of his lying, and 
not in consequence of it. His habit of lying is the only 
thing people have against him. They give him their 
custom because he is a good workman, and for nothing 
else. 

I have no doubt that, as he reads this letter, he says 
to himself that I talk as if a man could always keep his 
promises, honestly made, and as if there were men in 
the world who never break promises. I know, indeed, 
that there is no man who can so thoroughly depend 
upon circumstances, or so control them, as always to 
be sure to keep his pledges. Sickness happens to all. 
Calamity in some form comes to all. Drunkenness 
sometimes overtakes a journeyman shoemaker, though, 
to tell the truth, such men are not commonly employed 
by masters who care about keeping their word. Men 
of business punctilio, and regular business habits, can 



Hans Sachs Jones. 47 

always secure the best workmen. It is only the unreli- 
able masters who are obliged to accept unreliable hands, 
though I would by no means intimate that I believe in his 
representations concerning the drunkenness of his work- 
men. His men are shamefully belied ; and if they knew 
how badly they are slandered, they would rebel. No ; I 
admit that the most prompt and punctual men must fail, 
through unforeseen impediments, to keep every prom- 
ise ; but such men do not lie their way out of their dif- 
ficulty, and are only the more careful about making and 
keeping their engagements afterward. 

To me, one of the most admirable things in the world 
is business punctilio. I think it is rare to find very bad 
men among thorough business men. I do not mean to 
say that a good business man is necessarily religious, 
or even necessarily without vices. I mean, simply, that 
it is difficult to be strictly honest in business, and sensi- 
tive in all matters pertaining to business engagements, 
and thoroughly punctual in the fulfilment of all business 
obligations, and at the same time to be loose in morals 
and dissipated in personal habits. I have great respect 
for those rigid laws of the counting-room which regulate 
the dealings between man and man, and which make 
the counting-room as exact in all matters of time and 
exchange as a banking-house — which ignore friendship, 
affection, and all personal considerations whatsoever — 
which place neighbors and brothers on the same plat- 
form with enemies and aliens, and which make an auto- 



48 Concerning the Joiies Family, 

crat of an accountant, who is, at the same time, strictly 
an obedient subject of his own laws. I say it is hard for 
a man to enter as a perfectly harmonious element into 
this grand system of business, and submit himself to its 
rigid rules, and maintain his position in it with perfect 
integrity and, at the same time, be a very bad man. 
To a certain extent he bows to and obeys a high stan- 
dard of life. He may not always recognize fully the 
moral element which it embodies. He may take a self- 
ish view of the whole matter, but he cannot be entirely 
insensible to the principle of personal honor which it in- 
volves, or fail to be influenced by the personal habits 
which it enforces. Some of the best business men I 
have ever known have been the most charitable men I 
have ever known. Men who have acquired wealth by 
rigid adherence to business integrity, and who have 
sometimes been deemed harsh and hard by those with 
whom they have had business relations, have shown a 
liberality and a generosity toward objects of charity 
which have placed them among the world's benefactors. 
Men who have exacted the last fraction of a cent with 
one hand, in the way of business, have disbursed thou- 
sands of dollars with the other, in the way of charity. 

On another side of this subject, it may be stated that 
it is not possible for a man to be careless in business 
affairs, or unmindful of his business obligations, without 
being weak or rotten in his personal character. Show 
me a man who never pays his notes when they are due, 



Hans Sachs Jones. 49 

and who shuns the payment of his bills when it is possi- 
ble, and does both these things as a habit, and I shall 
see a man whose moral character is, beyond all question, 
bad. We have had illustrious examples of this lack of 
business exactness. We have had great men who were 
in the habit of borrowing money without repaying it, or 
apologizing for not repaying it. We have had great men 
whose business habits were simply scandalous — who 
never paid a bill unless urged and worried, and who ex- 
pended for their personal gratification every cent of 
money they could lay their hands upon. These delin- 
quencies have been apologized for as among the eccen- 
tricities of genius, or as that unmindfulness of small 
affairs which naturally attends all greatness of intellect 
and intellectual effort ; but the world has been too easy 
with them altogether. I could name great men — and the 
names of some of them arise before the readers of this 
paper — who were atrociously dishonest. I do not care 
how great these men were. I do not care how many 
amiable and admirable traits they possessed. They were 
dishonest and untrustworthy men in their business rela- 
tions, and that simple fact condemns them. I am ready 
to believe anything bad of a man who habitually neglects 
to fulfil his business obligations. Such a man is certainly 
rotten at heart. He is not to be trusted with a public 
responsibility, or a rum bottle, or a woman. 

Now, Mr. Hans Sachs Jones, has customers of this 
class. Will he permit me to ask him how he likes 
3 



50 Concerning the Jones Family. 

them ? Some of these men are poor, but quite as many 
of them are rich. He lied to them a great many times 
before they made their little bills with him, and they 
have lied to him a great many times since. When he 
has had money to raise, they have promised to furnish it 
to him, and then they have failed to keep their pledges. 
Not unfrequently when he has upbraided them for dis- 
appointing him, they have retorted by telling him that 
he made them wait for their work, and that it is perfectly 
proper that he should wait for his pay. Their reply was 
a fair one so far as he was concerned. -It was just as 
much a matter of business honor that he should keep 
his promises, as it was that they should keep theirs. It 
was just as wrong for him to promise his work before he 
could give it to them, as it was for them to promise to 
pay him, before they could pay him, or before they 
intended to pay him. In his heart, he thinks these men 
are very mean, and in their hearts they think that he is 
just as mean as they are, and they are right. Their plea 
leaves him defenceless, and they banter and badger 
him until he becomes disgusted with his business and 
himself. Ah ! if he had never given those customers of 
his an advantage over him, by his constant failures to 
keep his word with them, he would be worth a good 
many more dollars to-day than he is. 

Then he ought to remember that he owes a debt of 
honor to his guild. A very admirable thing among 
tradesmen of the same class is that esprit de corps 



Hans Sachs Jones. 51 

which enables them to join hands in a recognized com- 
munity of honor and of interest, and to look upon their 
trade as the kind mother that feeds them and that de- 
serves at their hands the treatment due from grateful 
and chivalrous sons. He has doubtless heard of as- 
sociations of men engaged in much humbler employ- 
ments than his (humbler in the world's judgment), 
that really won the respect and admiration of the com- 
munities in which they lived — men who felt strength- 
ened and ennobled by their association — men who 
came by their association to feel the slightest insult 
offered to their trade as a personal affront. I say that 
this esprit de corps is a very admirable thing, and, fur- 
ther, that it gives, or may give, a true dignity to any 
honest calling under heaven. We do not have so much 
of this in this country as we ought to have. All Euro- 
pean countries are ahead of us in this matter, princi- 
pally, perhaps, for the reason that in those countries the 
acquisition and pursuit of trades are more particularly a 
matter of legal regulation. Here a man may set up a 
trade whether he ever learned it or not ; and few learn 
their trades thoroughly. It is more difficult, therefore, 
to secure community of feeling among those engaged in 
the same pursuits here than abroad ; but it is none the 
less desirable and necessary, that among good workmen 
there should be brotherhood of feeling and interest — 
pride and sympathy of guild. It would give Mr. Hans 
Sachs Jones dignity, protection, respectability ; and he 



52 Concerning the Jones Family. 

would feel in all his business transactions that, however 
reckless he might be of disgrace to himself, he has no 
right to disgrace his business, or his brotherhood. 

I repeat, then, that he owes a debt of honor to his 
guild. There are men engaged in the same calling with 
him, who scorn the petty arts of falsehood to which he 
resorts. They are men of character — men who never 
make a promise which they do not intend to keep, and 
who faithfully and conscientiously strive to keep every 
promise which they make. These are the men who give 
to their calling all the respectability which it possesses. 
All labor of the hands, pursued for bread, is honorable, 
and honorable alike. One trade is respectable above 
another only in consequence of the superior respectabil- 
ity of the class of men engaging in it. Now, any trades- 
man has a right, in a certain sense, to disgrace himself, 
but he has no right to disgrace his trade and his guild. 
His devotion to this idea should be almost religious ; 
for, in a certain degree, he has the reputation of the 
whole class with which he is identified in interest in his 
keeping, and he is bound by every principle of justice 
and honor not to betray it. 

I have not alluded, in what I have to say upon this 
subject, to those higher motives of conduct which grow 
out of his relations to the God of truth, nor do I propose 
to do so. The subject of. this paper knows just as well 
as I do, that his system of business lying is morally 
wrong. I simply wish, in closing this paper, to call his 



Hans Sachs Jones. 53 

attention to the fact that he has arrived at a point where 
his conscience ceases to trouble him. He does not use 
profane language. He is shocked when he hears others 
use it, but he is aware that many of his acquaintances 
swear from habit, and, by habitual swearing, have 
ceased to look upon their profanity as profanity. They 
take the names of God and Jesus Christ in vain, and call 
for curses upon the heads even of their friends, without 
a thought of sin and without a twinge of conscience. 
Over a certain region of their moral sense profanity has 
trampled, until it has trampled the life all out of it. So, 
over a certain region of his moral sense, these lies of his 
have trod their daily course, until not a blade of grass 
or a flower is left to give token of life, or breathe com- 
plaint of the invaders. They have trampled out all sen- 
sibility, and he lies without feeling it ; and when he is 
detected and indignantly rebuked, as he sometimes is, 
he only feels his detection as an inconvenience, which 
might have been avoided by more ingenious lying. I 
beg him to discontinue this ruinous practice, and see if 
sensibility will not once more inform those functions of 
his moral nature which persistent abuse has indurated 
and rendered useless. 



EDWARD PAYSON JONES. 

CONCERNING HIS FAIL URE TO YIELD TO HIS CON- 
VICTIONS OF DUTY. 

AS I write this name, there comes before me the vision 
of a fair-haired, blue-eyed boy, who was fed by 
smiles and pleasant words at home so constantly that his 
whole nature was sweetened by them. I remember how 
he used to look up into my face for recognition, and for 
the greeting and the smile which he had learned to ex- 
pect from everybody. Into few faces did those expect- 
ant blue eyes look in vain, for he was the universal 
favorite. I remember that I was always so much im- 
pressed by his pure and precious nature, that I could 
never resist the impulse to put my arm around him and 
draw him to my heart. It was easy to love him, and 
sweet to be loved by him ; and those who knew his 
sainted mother knew why he was what he was in spirit- 
ual and personal loveliness. That mother has been 
dead a long time, and it is easy to imagine her reason 
for giving her son the name of Edward Payson. Ah, 
yes ! I know that even he must sometimes remember 



Edward Pay son Jones. 55 

that in her heart of hearts — before he was born — she 
dedicated him to the service of the Saviour of men, and 
that she crowned him with a name hallowed by a wide 
wealth of Christian associations that she might be re- 
minded of her gift whenever she pronounced it. The 
absorbing hope of her life was to see her boy in the 
pulpit, and to hear him preach the everlasting gospel. 
To compass this end she would have been willing to 
work her fingers to the bone ; to live in want ; to deny 
herself every worldly pleasure ; nay, to lay down her 
life itself. She died, at last, without seeing the attain- 
ment of the object for which she had labored and prayed 
so ardently. 

Well, he is now a man ; and he is just as widely a 
favorite to-day as he was when he was a boy ; but he is 
not the man whom his mother prayed he might become, 
and is not likely to be. That he is stifling convictions 
of duty by the- course which he is pursuing, every man 
knows who remembers his early training, and the na- 
ture upon which that training could not fail to leave its 
impress. He is a man whom everybody loves ; whom 
everybody praises ; whom everybody believes to be in 
a measure the subject of Christian conviction ; whom 
everybody believes to be, within certain limitations, 
controlled by Christian principles ; yet, in an irreligious 
community, he has never, in a manly way, declared 
himself in the possession and on the side of personal 
Christianity. Under these circumstances, there are 



56 Concerning the Jones Family. 

some things which it seems to me to be my duty to say 
to him and about him. 

Christianity is everything, or it is nothing ; it is 
divine, or it is nothing; it has the right to the entire 
control of a man's life, or it has no claims at all. It is 
hardly necessary that I should argue the transcendent 
worth, the divine origin, or the grand claims of that re- 
ligion which made an angel of one's mother, and trans- 
formed the little room in which she died into heaven's 
gateway. It is hardly necessary for me to assure Ed- 
ward Payson Jones that these convictions of duty which 
haunt him everywhere, which assert themselves in his 
heart in every scene of questionable mirth and careless 
society, are not superstitions engendered by early edu- 
cation in error. It is hardly necessary that I should 
try to prove to him that a life which does not acknowl- 
edge a rule of action imposed by the Author of life, 
must necessarily be a life of transgression and the fruits 
of transgression. He knows — he is entirely convinced — 
that he owes the devoted allegiance of his heart, the 
obedience of his will, and the gift of his life to that re- 
ligion in which alone abides the secret of the purification 
and salvation of himself and his race. He is convinced 
that without Christianity this world would be as dark as 
the infernal shades ; that it alone gives significance to 
life ; that it alone can give such direction to its issues 
that they shall rise to everlasting harmony and everlast- 
ing happiness. 



Edward Pay son Jones. 57 

There are those around us who do not believe in these 
things. They had not a Christian training. They do not 
possess pureness of insight. In short, they are not, to any 
great extent, the subjects of religious conviction ; and yet 
these are the men who are chosen by Edward Payson 
Jones as his associates and fellows. Is it a manly thing 
for one like him, with his convictions, to live like one 
who has no convictions ? Must he not feel that he is 
disgracing himself, and depreciating his own self-respect, 
by constantly refusing to yield his heart and life to the 
claim of those convictions ? 

While he gives such answers to these questions as I 
know he cannot fail to give, if he considers them at all, 
and while he half resolves to yield to convictions which 
I know are pressing upon him with redoubled force, he 
looks forward to the possible consequences of a change 
in the motives and regulating forces of his life. Before 
his imagination, glaring gloomily in the distance, there 
stands a lion in the way. A hearty and unconditional 
surrender to his convictions would involve changes in 
his social relations, in habits which have become en- 
deared to him, in the general sources from which he 
has drawn the satisfactions of his life. He knows that 
a change like this would bring with it a public declara- 
tion of his faith, and a publicly formed union with those 
men and women who have organized themselves into 
the Christian Church. He shrinks from this with a sen- 
sitiveness of selfish pride which ought to show that he is 
3* 



58 Concerning the Jones Family. 

-very much farther from being a Christian than he sup- 
poses himself to be, for with all his consciousness of 
religious convictions stifled, he is fondly cherishing the 
fancy that he is already quite as good as Christians 
average. 

Now, he ought to know that I do not entertain a very 
extravagant opinion of the prerogatives of the Christian 
Church. No church has the power to save him or any 
man, or to say whether he or any man shall be saved or 
not. He knows 'also that I am no propagandist of sec- 
tarian doctrines and policies. If a church is a Christian 
church, that is enough. I do not care the value of 
a straw by what name it calls itself. I look upon it as 
a school of Christian disciples — of imperfect men and 
women who have chosen Christianity as their religion, 
their reforming motive, and their rule of life ; the grand 
system of spiritual truths into which they have garnered 
their hopes for this life and . the life to come — garnered 
their temporal and eternal satisfactions. I do not be- 
lieve in the infallibility of any church, or in the sinless- 
ness of any member of any church. Nay, I do not 
believe that the act of uniting with a church has in 
itself any saving grace whatever. Church is not Christi- 
anity and Christianity is not church in any practical 
sense. A man is probably just as good a Christian the 
moment before joining a church as he is the moment 
after, but a Christian will cast in his lot with Christians, 
if he possesses a decent degree of manhood, and share 



Edward Payson Jones. 59 

with them in the Christian work and responsibility of 
the world. 

I very well know what the influences are which re- 
strain Edward Payson from yielding to his convictions, 
and from taking the public step which would naturally 
follow such a surrender. He loves praise, he likes 
to be loved by everybody, and he has very strong 
friends among all sorts of people. The good people 
praise him, and feel as if he, with his straightforward 
life and good habits, belonged to them. The bad peo- 
ple like him, and feel that, by his practical denial of the 
claims of Christianity, he makes their position respecta- 
ble. But where does he find his delights ? Who are 
his cronies ? Whose society does he seek ? When he 
feels inclined to yield to his convictions of duty, whose 
are the shrugging shoulders and the pitying smiles ; 
whose are the quiet jest, and the banter, and the badi- 
nage which come in quick vision to him to shame and 
scare him ? Ah ! he does not love that which is char- 
acteristically Christian society. He loves that which 
has no Christian element in it except the element of 
decency ; and he feels that to become the member of 
a Christian church would throw him out of sympathy 
with men whose good will and good fellowship he counts 
among his choicest treasures. He cannot bear that 
these men should think him weak and womanish. He 
cannot bear to become the subject of their lenient and 
charitable scorn. 



6o Concerning the Jones Family. 

Human friendship is very sweet. These ties that 
bind heart to heart ; these sympathetic responses of kin- 
dred natures ; these loves among men, glorify human 
life ; but they not unfrequently form a bond of union so 
strong, that one powerful nature will, through their aid, 
carry whithersoever it will — even into the jaws of de- 
struction — all the lives that are joined with it. The ice 
upon the mountain-side links rock to rock, till the light- 
ning or the earthquake loosens the hold of the giant of 
the group, and it drags them all into the valley below. 
Life nearly always follows the current of its friendships, 
or flows parallel with it. If a man finds his most grate- 
ful companionship among those who are irreligious — 
either negatively or positively — he shows just what and 
where his heart is. Like seeks and sympathizes with 
like. 

I ask the subject of this paper to apply this test to 
himself. What kind of society does he delight in most ? 
Does he love and cling to those most who best represent 
to him the religion in which his mother lived and died, 
or those who practically hold that religion in very light 
esteem ? I ask him to apply this test, because I think 
he is entertaining the idea that, although he makes no 
professions, he is quite as good a Christian as those are 
who do. But he chooses freely to give his most inti- 
mate friendships to the worldlings by whom he is sur- 
rounded. I state the fact, and leave him to his own 
conclusions. 



Edwai'd Pay son Jones. 61 

There is another powerful influence which dissuades 
him from yielding to his convictions : He is absorbed 
in business. All the activities of his nature are given to 
it. Great business responsibilities are upon him, and 
his heart gives them glad entertainment, for they are 
full of promise to his ambition and his desire for wealth. 
Business occupies nearly all his waking thoughts, and 
even haunts his pillow and breaks his slumbers. It in- 
trudes itself upon his family life, and monopolizes both 
his time and his vital power. His heart is so full that 
he has no room in it for another object. Wife and chil- 
dren, and friends and business — these four ; but the 
greatest of these, practically, is business. If he will 
candidly examine himself, he will see that I do not over- 
rate this power of business which shuts out from his 
heart a guest who sits and shivers in its ante-room in 
the cold society of his convictions. To make this mat- 
ter still worse, he is thrown in contact with men, in the 
way of business, upon whom he is, to a certain extent, 
dependent for his prosperity, who hold Christianity and 
its professed friends and possessors in contempt. These 
men, with their business thoughts and schemes, break 
in upon his Sabbaths ; they tempt him, they familiarize 
his ears with profanity, and invest him constantly with 
an atmosphere of worldliness. He has in his present 
position no defence against the influence of these asso- 
ciations. He has never declared himself upon the sub- 
ject of Christianity, and these business friends of his 



62 Concerning the Jones Family, 

know it. They recognize him as one of their own number, 
and treat him accordingly ; and yet he is foolish enough 
to believe, or to try to make himself believe, that a man 
can be just as good a Christian outside of a church as 
inside of it. Yet if he felt himself identified with a great 
cause, he would not betray it. I am sure that he has 
often comforted himself with the consideration that, if 
he has failed to become what his convictions have urged 
him to become, no one has been harmed but himself. 

Edward Payson Jones is a man of honor. I have 
given him the credit of being sensitively such. I know 
of no man who more thoroughly despises a mean and 
unmanly spirit, or a mean and unmanly deed. If he 
were to see a man who, for any reason, should cast his 
vote at an election contrary to his convictions of politi- 
cal duty, or one who should stand upon the fence in 
an important canvass and refuse to place himself upon 
the side of the right, or who, in a great public emer- 
gency, should fail to perform his duty through absorb- 
ing devotion to his private pursuits, he would think him 
a mean man. He would despise particularly one whom 
he knew to be the subject of strong political convictions, 
which were so feebly pronounced that all parties claimed 
him. I take his own standard, and reply to him. I say, 
on the authority of his own best judgments, that it is 
mean and unmanly for him, with his strong religious- 
convictions, to refuse to stand by them and act up to 
them. It is mean and unmanly to refuse to identify 



Edzvard Payson Jones. 63 

himself with the society, and assist in maintaining and 
forwarding the cause of those whom, sooner or later, he 
deliberately intends to join, and whom he feels and 
knows to be in the right. If he were not convinced of 
the truth, I would be more charitable toward him. If 
there remained anything to be done in shaping the judg- 
ment of his intellect and his heart, he would have some 
excuse ; but no such exigency exists. No, he is con- 
vinced ; but he flinches, and he refuses to stand in a 
manly way by what he knows and feels to be right. 

While I thus blame him, I pity him. I know how 
much his will bends before these words of mine, and 
how impotent he feels for action in the right direction. 
He almost feels as if his hands and feet were tied. He 
almost feels as if he must follow his old friendships — 
that they have fastened themselves to him by hooks of 
steel which cannot be broken. He feels that his busi- 
ness is upon him, and all its associations, and that 
neither can be lifted. He feels that he really has no 
room in his life for those experiences and those duties 
which accompany the surrender of the heart to religion. 
He feels himself walled around by obstacles, and, what 
is really worse than this, he knows that he grows more 
and more in love with the life he leads, and less inclined 
to take the direction of his early training. The oath 
does not shock him as it once did ; vulgarity is not as of- 
fensive as it was ; he has learned to look more leniently 
upon the vices of the men by whom he is surrounded ; 



64 Concerning the Jones Family. 

worldliness does not seem so barren a form of life as 
formerly ; he is charmed and excited by success ; and 
he cannot deny to himself the fact that, strong as his 
convictions of duty are, his heart and his life are grow- 
ing more and more widely estranged from them. Where 
can he suppose all this will end ? He has common 
sense, and can judge as well as I. Do habits grow 
weaker by long continuance ? Are the cares of busi- 
ness less absorbing as life advances ? Is moral convic- 
tion stronger for constant denial and insult ? I say he 
has common sense and can judge as well as I. He 
knows as well as I that this life of his must have a rup- 
ture with its surroundings ; that his feet must turn into 
another path ; that he must yield himself a conquest to 
his convictions, or that his life will be one of disaster, 
and that its end will be wretchedness or an induration 
worse than wretchedness. 

He is surrounded by a crowd of men and women who 
do not regard life as a very serious thing. They take it 
carelessly and even gaily. He sees the multitudes rush- 
ing along in the pursuit of baubles. Men live and die, 
and there comes back no voice to tell whether they sleep 
with the brutes or wake with the angels. Men eat and 
sleep, and love and hate, and make display of their 
equipage, and pursue their ambitions, and indulge in all 
the forms of vanity and pride, and all life comes at last 
to seem like a sort of phantasmagoria — empty, unreal, 
insignificant. He sees that these convictions of his have 



Edward Pay son Jones. 6$ 

no place in the multitude of minds around him, and no 
place in the current of life by which he feels himself 
borne along. There are moments, I suppose, when he 
doubts the soundness of these convictions — when he 
half believes that he is the victim of a morbid con- 
science or a superstitious impression. At such mo- 
ments as these — when the tricks of the world delude 
him most, he comes back to his mother and learns the 
truth. That life of hers, so pure and unselfish and use- 
ful, and that death of hers, so peaceful and triumphant, 
are realities. They can never lie to him, and the mo- 
ment he touches them, he knows that he touches some- 
thing divine — something by the side of which all worldli- 
ness and wealth and material success are chaff. 

He will perceive in what I have written to him, that I 
have not undertaken to convince him of anything. I have 
not undertaken even to deepen his convictions. I have 
simply endeavored to reveal him and his own experi- 
ence to himself, and to urge him to yield to convictions 
which I know are striving to gain the control of his life. 
I have simply urged him to be true to himself; to take 
a bold, manly, consistent stand upon the side which he 
knows to be right ; to be a Christian man in Christian 
society, and to refuse longer to stand upon what he mis- 
takenly regards as neutral ground. He ought to know 
that he is abusing and ruining himself. He ought to re- 
alize that the passage of every day renders it less probable 
that his convictions will ever gain the victory over him. 



66 Concerning the Jones Family. 

I appreciate the struggle it would cost him to welcome 
the new motive and change the policy and issues of his 
life. The preacher may talk as he will of the path of 
life and the ease of yielding up the will, but he and I 
know that there is no ease about it. We know that 
whatever may be the truth touching the doctrine of uni- 
versal total depravity, it is not natural for us to lead re- 
ligious lives. It takes sacrifice and fighting and heroism 
to do that. I know it and he knows it. Easy to be a 
Christian man ? It is mean for a man like him not to 
be one ; it is wrong for a man like him not be one ; 
but Heaven knows that it is not easy for him to be one, 
or he would have been one long ago. No, it will be 
hard for him to be one, and it will grow harder every 
year till he becomes one. But it will pay ; and when 
he is once fairly on the right side he will not care for 
the struggle, for he will have good company, a clean 
conscience, and an outlook into the far future unclouded 
and full of inspiration. 



MRS. JESSY BELL JONES. 

CONCERNING THE DIFFICULTY SHE EXPERI- 
ENCES IN KEEPING HER SERVANTS. 

IT has been stated to me, confidentially, that Mrs. 
Jessy Bell Jones has had nineteen different cooks 
and thirteen chambermaids in her house during the past 
year. This may be slightly above the annual average — 
I should hope so. I do not understand how flesh and 
blood can endure such changes. Yet she lives and 
thrives, and the new servants come and go at about the 
usual number per month. Her husband grew tired long 
ago with rasping against so much new domestic mate- 
rial, but has learned fortitude by practice. One or two 
attempts to tell her that there were women who kept their 
servants for months and years without change, and to 
convince her that it was possible that there were bad 
mistresses in the world as well as bad servants, resulted 
in scenes which will be avoided in the future. Not if he 
were to see a procession of young women entering his 
house and emerging from it through all the weary year — 
not if he were to hear a constant storm raging in the 



68 Concerning the Jones Family. 

kitchen and echoing through the passages and cham- 
bers, would he ever intimate that she was not the para- 
gon of mistresses and that her girls were not the mean- 
est, dirtiest, sauciest pot-slewers that ever invaded an 
abode of civilization. 

No, she will hereafter have it all her own way, with- 
out any interference from him. He knows she is in the 
wrong — and so does she — but he will never tell her so 
again. On the contrary, he will sympathize with her 
after a fashion, and take her part in all her quarrels and 
all her domestic difficulties ; but he will quietly wish, 
meanwhile, that she had the faculty of getting along 
pleasantly with her servants. I have intimated that she 
knows herself to be in the wrong. She is not a fool. On 
the contrary, she is a very sharp, bright woman, and she 
cannot fail to see that there is a reason, somewhere in 
her house, for her failure to keep her servants. Her 
neighbor lives in the same climate that she does. The 
roof of her house is covered by slate from the same 
quarry ; the Stuart's stove is of the same size in the one 
house as in the other ; the two laundries are equally 
convenient ; the neighbor's servants are no better fed 
than hers ; the wages are no better ; but the neighbor 
keeps her servants and she does not keep hers. When 
one of the neighbor's servants marries, or sickens, or 
for any reason, wishes to leave her, fifty others stand 
ready to take her place, and she has her pick of them 
all, while Mrs. Jones is obliged to take such as come, 



Mrs. Jessy Bell Jones. 6g 

and such as feel compelled to come after having heard 
that she is a hard mistress. For she must know that 
masters and mistresses have reputations among servants 
— reputations made up, and weighed, and widely known. 
She, and a hundred other women whom I know, have 
bad reputations among servants ; and when she deals 
with them she is always obliged to deal with them under 
the disadvantages which a bad reputation bears with it. 

Suppose we have a little plain talk about these mat- 
ters, and see if we cannot get an understanding of them. 
Mrs. Jones will pardon me if I tell her, in the first place, 
that she is an opinionated person, which is a mild way 
of stating that, in certain respects, she is very conceited. 
Her pet conceit is that she is a model housekeeper, and 
her opinion is that she knows the best and only proper 
modes of doing the work in her kitchen, and in her 
house generally. She has her way of doing everything. 
She has her particular order, in which all things about 
her are to be done. The machinery of her household 
arrangements, as it exists in her mind, is a perfect 
whole, and every executive element that she introduces 
into it must adapt itself to that machinery, or it is cast 
out at once, or so harassed that it casts itself out. 
Suppose a girl enters her kitchen who understands her 
business, but who has learned it under another mistress, 
and a different household economy. She has learned to 
do her work in a certain way and after a certain order. 
She has her notions as well as Mrs. Jones. It is quite 



70 Concerning the Jones Family. 

possible that those notions may be in many respects 
better than those of Mrs. Jones. Mrs. Jones insists, 
however, from the moment she enters her service, that 
she shall do her work in her way. The new mistress 
does not wait to see results. She does not wait to see 
how the servant will succeed if left entirely to herself, 
but she goes into the kitchen with her, and superintends 
every act. She gives her no freedom, encourages no 
independent effort ; she takes the whole burden on her- 
self, and insists that the servant shall be her machine. 
When this servant forgets her directions, or steps aside 
from them, she is found fault with. She soon tires of 
this sort of treatment, and her mistress is told to look 
for another girl. 

I have said that Mrs. Jones' pet conceit is that she is 
a model housekeeper, and tried to show that her diffi- 
culties with her servants grow out of her insisting that 
they shall do everything in her way. I think I may 
justly say, in addition, that there is a certain sensitive- 
ness of will in her constitution which aggravates these 
difficulties. She is imperious. There is one spot in 
the world where she has the right to rule — one spot 
where that will of hers has the right to assert itself and 
make itself law. Perhaps there is no other spot where 
her will is recognized. Her house is her only domain. 
There she is a queen, and she is sensitively alive to all 
interference with her prerogatives. It frets her to feel 
that there is any other person in the house with a will, 



Mrs. Jessy Bell Jones. 7 1 

who has anything to do or say about her domestic 
affairs. She does not feel that a servant has a right to 
an independent opinion on any subject connected with 
her service ; and when any such opinion finds practical 
expression, it enrages her. A servant may feel that if 
she does her work well, in the way most convenient to 
herself, she does all that her mistress can reasonably 
claim ; but the mistress feels that unless that work — in 
all its modes and particulars — has followed the channel 
of her will, she has been insulted in her own house. In 
short, Mrs. Jones is " touchy," and when she is touched, 
she scolds, and when she scolds, off goes her servant. 
She has excellent pluck, however. I have never known 
her to lament the loss of a servant. They were always 
such terrible creatures, that she was glad to get rid of 
them. I do not know how she came to be just the sort 
of mistress she is. She was a very pleasant little girl, 
with a sweet temper. It has really puzzled me to find 
out the reason for her peculiar development. I suppose 
there must be an " ugly streak " in her somewhere, but 
she did not show it when she was a child. Her hair is 
red, I know (call it golden), and the eye black ; but the 
hair is beautiful and soft, and the eye has a world of 
love in it for the man it worships and for his children. 
My theory is, that every nature which has any force in it 
will assert itself somewhere, in some form ; and that if 
it fails to be recognized in society, it will make itself 
recognized where there are none to dispute its claims. 



72 Concerning the Jones Family. 

I do not recall a single famous housekeeper — with a 
splendid faculty for getting rid of servants, and a bad 
reputation among them — who, at the same time, was a 
woman widely recognized in society. If Mrs. Bell Jones 
were an acknowledged power and authority in the social 
circle ; if she were a fine musician, with the opportunity 
to charm her friends ; if she had a high degree of liter- 
ary culture, and were received everywhere in literary 
circles as an ornament or an equal ; if she possessed 
a recognized value out of her house, or in her parlor, 
beyond other women of her class or set, I think she 
would be content ; that her servants would get along well 
enough, and that she would get along well enough with 
them. But she has turned housekeeper, and directed 
all her energies and all her ambitions, and all her will, 
into the channel of housekeeping ; and woe to the ser- 
vant who stands in her way ! 

Under these circumstances, there are a few practical 
questions which it would be well for her to ask herself. 
Does she feel that her system of management pays ? 
Does she enjoy these constant troubles with her ser- 
vants ? Does she think her husband enjoys them, and 
her irate or plaintive representations of them ? Does 
she not feel sometimes as if she would be willing to give 
a good deal of money and put herself to a good deal of 
trouble to get along as smoothly with her girls as some 
of her neighbors do ? Does she wish or expect always 
to live the same sort of life she is living now ? 



Mrs. Jessy Bell Jones. 73 

In making up her answers to these questions, she 
must remember that any change which may be made 
must begin with herself. If she is really willing to make 
sacrifices for the sake of peace and perpetuity in her 
domestic arrangements, she can have both ; but she 
will be obliged to sacrifice her will, and a good many 
of her pet notions concerning housekeeping. If it is 
sweeter to her to have her will than it is to keep girls 
steadily who will serve her reasonably well, why, of 
course, that settles the question ; though it is doubtful 
whether she would get so much of her will accomplished 
by sending them away as she would by keeping them. 

There are certain facts that she must take into con- 
sideration when she hires a servant. The most impor- 
tant is, perhaps, that when she hires a servant she does 
not buy a slave. She does not buy the right to badger 
and scold her, to impose unreasonable burdens, or to 
treat her servant as if she were only an animal. She is 
to remember, also, that there are two sides to this rela- 
tion of mistress and servant. Labor is not a drug in 
this country, yet, thank Heaven ! and it is quite as im- 
portant to her that she have servants, as it is to her girls 
that they do service. She and her girls are under mu- 
tual obligations to treat each other well. In England, 
and on the continent, where human life, owing to pecu- 
liar circumstances, is in excess — a condition which can- 
not possibly exist in healthfully constituted society — 
servants are born into families often, and grow up de- 
4 



74 Concerning the Jones Family. 

pendents, forever attached to the family name and in- 
terest. A good place and a permanent one is equivalent 
to treasure with them, and they will make many sacri- 
fices to preserve it. Here it is different. Labor is 
everywhere in demand, and no girl ever steps out of 
Mrs. Jones' door without knowing that, within a short 
space of time, she can easily find another place, with a 
chance at least for better treatment than she received 
from her last mistress. 

There is another consideration to which I am sure 
sufficient importance has not been attached. She is a 
Protestant, as the majority of Americans are, and she 
knows that servants who come to her, and whom the 
most of us employ, are Catholics. It is notorious and 
incontrovertible that her servants are taught to consider 
her a heretic — a person who has no religion, and who is 
bound as directly for hell as if she were a murderess. It 
is cruel to teach those ignorant women such horrible 
stuff, but they are taught it. The Irish girl in Airs. 
Jones' kitchen — who perhaps does not know her alphabet, 
who probably has not the first idea of the vital truths 
of Christianity — regards her and the whole community 
of American Protestants with contempt, as the accursed 
of God, and of those whom she supposes to be his 
representatives on the earth. She has been bred to this 
opinion, and it may be the only really strong opinion 
she has in her mind. She has no doubt that a drunken, 
profane, lying scoundrel, if he is only in the Catholic 



Mrs. Jessy Bell Jones. 75 

Church, has a better chance for heaven than the purest 
Protestant that lives, because she has been taught from 
childhood that there is no salvation out of " the 
Church." Now, I say that women thus bred cannot 
possibly entertain such a degree of respect for Mrs. 
Jones that they will take patiently her style of treat- 
ment. It is notorious that they receive, even with ab- 
ject humility, indignities from masters and mistresses 
belonging to their church, while they exact from Protes- 
tants the last ounce of that which is their due as Chris- 
tian women. I do not complain of this particularly, but 
I allude to it to show that Mrs. Jones, and every Protes- 
tant mistress in America, must necessarily labor under 
disadvantages in the management of servants. 

There is still another consideration which she and 
all other mistresses should make, which is, that all 
girls who are good for anything must do their work in 
their own way, or not do it well. One of the hardest 
things in this world, for any person who has brains and 
the power to use them, is to do another person's work 
in another person's way. To most persons the attempt 
to do this is always disgusting, and often distressing. 
It is only hacks and blockheads that can possibly sub- 
mit themselves to the degradation which such a service 
involves. We must always be content with these, or 
we must have servants who have some notions and ways 
of their own. A servant may be a very humble person, 
but she has her will, and her pride, and her desire to be 



y6 Concerning the Jones Family. 

somebody in her place, just as much as her mistress 
has ; and she will not sell her right to entertain an opin- 
ion and have her way in the little details of her service, 
for a dollar and seventy-five cents a week, to anybody. 
I must confess that I sympathize with her in this matter. 
Among her servants she may reasonably require results 
economically attained ; but all that exactness which in- 
sists on dusting a piano from the north to the south, or 
prescribes the whole routine of a kitchen to its minu- 
test particulars, and vigilantly maintains it, is an insult 
and a hardship, and is certain to be regarded and 
treated as such by every servant who is good for any- 
thing. 

Now, if Mrs. Jones is willing to entertain all these con- 
siderations, she can have servants and keep them. If she 
is willing to consider that her servant is not a slave, and 
has a right to the treatment due to a rational woman ; 
that she has no right to harass a servant with her 
notions or her petulancies ; that she is under as strong 
an obligation to treat the servant well as the servant is 
to treat her well ; that the latter has been bred to con- 
sider her a heretic — one for whom God has no respect 
and Heaven no home ; that it is in the nature of things 
impossible for a really capable and good servant to do 
her work cheerfully and well when she is required to do 
it in a way not her own ; that in this world of imperfec- 
tion there are some things that will be unpleasant " in 
the best regulated families ; " that it is better to en- 



Mrs. Jessy Bell Jones. J J 

joy peace generally, than to have one's will in unim- 
portant particulars — I say that if Mrs. Jones is willing 
to consider all these things, I. do not see why she may 
not keep her servants as long as other people, and have 
just as good a time with them. 

It will be very hard for Mrs. Jones to break into this 
thing, and I know of but one way for her to proceed. 
Let her get a new cook — the best she can find — and 
promise to pay her good wages. Then let her hold up 
her right hand and swear, in the presence of her husband 
(who will record her oath with unaffected delight), that 
she will not enter her kitchen for a month, unless it be 
to praise some particular dish, or tell the cook how 
nicely everything looks in her domain. At the end of 
the month she will have learned that cooking can be 
carried on in her family without her help, that her cook 
is contented and pleased, that she is happier than she 
has been for ten years, that she has more time for read- 
ing and dressing and visiting, and that the inconveni- 
ences attending a course like this are much less than 
those which have thus far accompanied her housekeep- 
ing life. I would not prescribe constant absence from 
the kitchen as the only safe course for all ; I simply say 
it is the only safe course for Mrs. Jones. After a few 
months shall have passed away, and she shall have come 
to love her new way of life, it will be safe for her to take 
a general oversight of her kitchen again. She must run, 
however, whenever she feels the old fever coming on. 



yS Concerning the Jones Family. 

Did Mrs. Jones ever think how easy it would be to change 
her pretty name — "Jessy Bell" — into Jezebel? It 
would be just as easy to transform her pretty nature 
into one which that name alone would fitly represent. 
I do not account her one of those women, possessed 
with the devil of neatness, who are as much the horror 
of husband and children as of servants. She is not even 
one of those women (from whom the gods defend me 
and mine !) to whom the vision of a speck of dirt is the 
cause of a convulsion and the inspiration of a lecture 
which would frighten anything but a clod out of the 
house. Mysterious are the ways of women. There be 
women who take delight in being miserable and mak- 
ing others so ; who can scold, or cry, or howl, or spit 
fire ; who would not be happy if they could be ; who 
badger everybody — implacable, unreasonable, abomi- 
nable women, from whom all gentle womanhood has de- 
parted. There be such women as these, I say, and 
everybody has seen them. Will Mrs. Jones permit me 
to tell her that she is in great danger of becoming one 
of them ? It is not hard for a woman in her circum- 
stances, who has set up for a model housekeeper, with 
a sensitive will and a determination to have everything 
her own way, to neglect the cultivation of those good- 
nesses and graces which keep her spirit soft, and keep 
it in sympathy with those who love her. 

The secret of living comfortably in this world con- 
sists in making the best of such unpleasant things as 



Mrs. Jessy Bell Jones. 79 

cannot be avoided. It is necessary to have servants, 
and it is necessary to obtain servants from what is 
called the lowest class of life. They are not a very trust- 
worthy class of people, but they have in them the labor 
that we want and must have. The question simply is 
whether, under the circumstances, Mrs. Jones will make 
herself and her husband miserable by insisting on that 
which she has never yet succeeded in getting — perfect 
servants — the perfect slaves of her will — or whether she 
will get the best servants she can, make allowances for 
their shortcomings, and put up with their imperfect ser- 
vice for the sake of peace. The way in which she an- 
swers this question will determine everything concerning 
the comfort of her home-life, and much concerning her 
own personal character. The best way for her is to 
confess — to herself, at least— that she has been all in the 
wrong, and to change her entire policy. Let her turn 
her energies in some other direction. Let her be as 
good a housekeeper as she can under the circumstan- 
ces, and be content with such modest attainments as 
servants moderately intelligent and immoderately inde- 
pendent will permit. Thus will Mrs. Jessy Bell Jones 
live long and comfortably on the earth, rejoicing the 
hearts of her husband and children, enjoying a good 
reputation among the class on which she must depend 
for service, taking comfort in lady-like pursuits, and 
avoiding the imminent danger in which she stands of 
becoming " Mrs. Jezebel Jones." 



SALATHIAL FOGG JONES. 

CONCERNING THE FAITH AND PROSPECTS OF HIS 
SECT OF RELIGIONISTS. 

SALATHIAL FOGG JONES happened to be one of 
the men ordained from the foundation of the world 
to be a Spiritualist. There are many unlike him who 
are Spiritualists, but there are none like him who are 
not. He has all that natural love of what is novel and 
marvellous, and that peculiar mixture of credulity and 
scepticism, and that perverse disposition to run against 
the feelings and prejudices of the people, which would 
lead him to embrace Spiritualism. Wherever I find a 
man who possesses his particular nature and character, 
I always find a Spiritualist ; for, if Spiritualism does not 
come to him, he goes to it. Mr. Jones was a Fourierite 
when I first knew him, and he rode the hobby of Fou- 
rierism until he rode it to death. Every "ism" that 
has been started for the last twenty years has numbered 
him among its champions. He was a zealous abolition- 
ist until abolitionism became popular, and then, without 
turning against it, he seemed to lose his interest in it. 



Salathial Fogg Jones. 8r 

When Spiritualism made its appearance, I knew that he 
would be a Spiritualist as well as I knew that "fire 
ascending, seeks the sun." It was the natural thing for 
him. 

I was not at all surprised, therefore, when he caught 
me by the button-hole one day, at the corner of a street, 
and announced to me the conviction that he could 
demonstrate the immortality of the human soul. He 
may, perhaps, remember the smile which his announce- 
ment excited. I confess that it amused me. He seemed 
as interested and pleased about the matter as if he had 
never heard of such a thing as immortality before. A 
book had been in his hands ever since he could read, 
that told him all about it. A belief in this immortality 
had incorporated itself into the constitution and govern- 
ments of all the powerful nations of the world ; had 
moulded civilization — nay, had created civilization out of 
barbarism ; had introduced into society its highest mo- 
tives and its most purifying elements ; had sustained 
the courage and inspired the hope of multitudes of 
dying saints and martyrs through all ages ; had sur- 
rounded him through all his life with the evidences of its 
vitality, and yet, he had but just satisfied himself on the 
question, by means of unaccountable raps on a table, in 
the dark, which, through a little assistance of his own, 
had spelled out, in bad orthography and worse syntax, 
an insignificant sentence ! Here was a moral force that 
had moved the world, yet it had never moved him. He 
4* 



82 Concerning the Jones Family. 

— wiser, more acute, less credulous, less superstitious — 
had waited to see a table dance before he could believe 
in that realm of spiritual things which has hung over and 
embraced him ever since he was born, and which has 
always had a representative in his own bosom. 

This has been one of the marvels of these latter-day- 
developments in spiritualism ; that men who have been 
sceptical on all cognate subjects, and have resisted all 
the moral and spiritual evidences of immortality — re- 
sisted all the evidences germane to the subject — have 
bowed like bulrushes before the proofs that come to 
them from a mysteriously played banjo or a common- 
place message, pretended to be rapped out by a friend 
on the other side of the river. It took Materialism to 
prove Spiritualism to these very acute men; and they 
thought that, because they had seen matter moved by 
spirit, or what they supposed to be spirit, they had 
made a prodigious advance. They have been floored 
by proofs that do not add a hair's weight to the faith of 
any genuine Christian in the world. They think that 
they have made a discovery, and that Christians are 
afraid of it, when the truth is that they have made no 
discovery whatever, and that Christians are above it. 
The proofs of spirituality and of immortality, to be 
found in what is called Spiritualism, are the grossest 
that can possibly be produced, supposing them to be 
genuine. They are proofs that deal with matter exclu- 
sively, and appeal to the commonest and lowest order 



Salathial Fogg Jones. 83 

of minds. It is Mr. Jones himself who is behind the 
age, and not the Christians at whose faith he scoffs, 
simply because he is not up to it and cannot appreciate 
it. He receives a little thing because he is not sufficient 
to receive a large one. 

I do not intend, in the few words which I propose to 
say to him, to undertake the overthrow of his proofs of 
Spiritualism. I am willing, indeed, to confess that I 
have witnessed, among much that was undoubtedly the re- 
sult of deception and jugglery, phenomena which I could 
not rationally account for by any other theory than that 
which assigns to them a spiritual origin. But those 
phenomena have never contributed anything to my con- 
viction that I am immortal, and that there is a realm of 
spiritual existence which holds the product of unnum- 
bered worlds and the history of an eternity. They have 
never made so much as a ripple on the surface of my 
faith. Their apparent aim has been so limited, many 
of them have been so low and frivolous, some of them 
have been so vicious, and all have had so much more to 
do with matter than with spirit, or with spiritual truth, 
that they have never seemed worthy for an instant to 
have any consideration as parts of any religious system 
or as opponents of any religious system. It is an insult to 
common sense, no less than an offence against decency, 
to compare the conglomerate trash which has been is- 
sued as the teachings of the spirits, with Christianity 
as a system of religion ; and it is simply impossible for 



84 Concerning the Jones Family. 

a true and hearty Christian to accept, in place of his 
faith, the peepings and the mutterings of a pack of lying 
demons, whose deceptions and tricks are acknowledged 
by their best friends. 

The rule which the Author of Christianity announced, 
and which the common judgment of the world has 
endorsed — that a tree is known by its fruits — is one 
which it is now proper to apply to Spiritualism. Thirty 
years have passed since the new sect made its first batch 
of proselytes. It is time to be looking for the fruit of 
this tree, which, at the beginning, was declared to be 
so full of golden promise. I would like to ask Mr. Jones 
if he has found Spiritualism particularly nourishing to 
himself. Is he a better man than he was thirty years 
ago ? How much progress has he really made toward 
spirituality ? How much more devout is his worship 
of the Great God than it was before he was convinced 
of the immortality of his own soul ? How much have 
his affections been purified, his love of spiritual things 
strengthened, his lust for sensual things diminished, by 
this new faith of his ? Has his sense of moral obliga- 
tion grown stronger ? Has his benevolence increased ? 
Has his love of all that is good and pure grown brighter, 
while the sensual delights of his animal life have faded ? 
These are important questions to him, and they are very 
important questions to Spiritualism itself. 

I must be plain with him, and tell him that if Spiritual- 
ism has improved him, I have failed to see it. I do not 



Salathial Fogg Jones. 85 

see that he has even made any progress intellectually. 
He pretends that Spiritualism reveals great truths, in 
which abide the seeds of progress and perfection for a 
race, but these seeds do not germinate in him. On the 
contrary, he seems content to stand on the threshold of 
his new religion, and to amuse himself with the same in- 
significant phenomena which first attracted his attention. 
I hear of his holding weekly, or semi-weekly, seances or 
" circles" where there are the ringing of bells, and play- 
ing of guitars, and the scraping of fiddles, and the tipping 
of tables, and the rubbing of faces, and the rapping of 
knuckles. It is the same old story of a sort of frolic or 
orgy with demons, and no step forward into a divine life. 
As it is with him, so it is with all whom I have seen. I 
will not speak of the immoralities to which Spiritualism 
has given birth. Free Love is not a plant indigenous to 
Spiritualism. It starts in human nature, and grows wher- 
ever there is license. The doctrine of " affinities " is 
as old as the race, and has found its advocates among 
the beastly of all races and the bad of all religions. I 
will not speak of the immoralities which have been asso- 
ciated with Spiritualism, because they are not peculiar 
to it ; but I say that I cannot perceive that Mr. Jones 
has made the slightest progress intellectually — he or his 
friends. He has always been busy with these little ma- 
terial phenomena, which have no more spiritual signifi- 
cance or vitality in them than there is in the grunts that 
come from a pig-sty — not half as much as there is in a 



86 Concerning the Jones Family. 

concert by Christy's minstrels. Has Spiritualism nothing 
more in it for him than this ? Is this the highest food it 
has to offer him ? Why, he ought to be intellectually a 
giant by this time. With immortality demonstrated to 
him, in daily communion with the spiritual world, with 
visions clarified of all errors and superstitions, he ought 
to have made advances which would prove to an incredu- 
lous world that Spiritualism has in it seeds, at least, of 
the intellectual millennium. It is not necessary for me 
to tell him that he has done no such thing. He has been 
mixed up with two or three fanciful schemes for social 
improvement, that have not had enough of vitality in 
them to preserve them from quick degeneration,' and 
these schemes have absorbed all his spiritual activities. 
Indeed, I think these " seances" have been rather dis- 
sipating than edifying to him. 

Literature has always been the record and the gauge 
of every form of civilization, every system of philosophy, 
and every scheme of religion ; and nothing is more cer- 
tain than that any religion which possesses vitality will 
permeate and reform all the literature associated with it, 
and create for itself a literature which is especially the 
product of its life. Thus, with the Bible for its basis, 
Christianity has created a literature of its own. An 
Alexandrian library could not contain the books which 
cluster around the Bible, deriving from it their sole in- 
spiration and significance, and receiving from it all their 
power, while there is not a book written within the pale 



Salathial Fogg Jones. 87 

of Christian civilization which is not modified by it. 
And literature is but one of the forms of art in which 
the Christian religion betrays the vitality of its central 
truths and ideas. There is hardly a department of 
painting and sculpture and architecture that does not 
have reference, at some point, to it, while many of its 
departments are its direct outgrowth and offspring. It 
is time that Spiritualism, if it possesses such claims and 
powers as are ascribed to it, should make its mark on 
literature and art. Has it done so ? 

I think Mr. Jones cannot fail to regard the literature 
that has been the direct and immediate outgrowth of 
Spiritualism as, on the whole, of an exceedingly frivo- 
lous, weak, and unworthy character. Spiritualism has 
undertaken to deal with almost all forms of literary art. 
It has put forth orations, philosophical disquisitions, 
revelations concerning the unseen world, prophesies of 
future events, and poetry. These productions purport 
to come from the spirits of departed men and women, 
who assume to speak from actual knowledge acquired 
in the realm of spiritual things. The least that can be 
assumed by the Spiritualist is that these utterances are 
the products of minds purified and exalted by freedom 
from the grosser animal life into which they were origi- 
nally born, strengthened and invigorated by direct con- 
tact with spiritual truth, and inspired by the vision of 
those realities of which we can only form, through guess 
and conjecture, the faintest idea. I say that this is the 



88 Concerning the Jones Family. 

least that can be assumed by the Spiritualist. It is 
the least that is assumed by him, or any of his associ- 
ates, concerning the utterances of his best spiritual cor- 
respondents ; yet I defy him to point me to a single 
oration originating in his circles that can compare with 
those of Webster, or Burke, or Everett ; a single philo- 
sophical discourse that betrays the brains of a Bacon ; a 
single revelation of the unseen world that can compare 
with that of John ; or a single poem that is not surpassed 
many times by many poems from the pen of the lament- 
ed Mrs. Browning. The Spiritualist is lame in every 
field in which, in accordance with his theories of intel- 
lectual and spiritual progress, he should walk with kingly 
strides. He cannot hold in contempt the literary judg- 
ments of the world ; and the literary judgments of the 
world are against him. It is the decided opinion of 
those whose opinions he is bound to respect that his 
theories of intellectual and spiritual progress beyond the 
grave are shockingly disproved by the products of the 
minds which pretend to address us from it. There is 
nothing in the literature of Spiritualism which, in power 
and beauty, and practical adaptation to the wants of 
men, and skilful use of language, can compare with the 
literature written before Spiritualism made its first rap. 
Does any one doubt it ? Look at the alcoves of the 
scholars and poets of the world, and mark the shelves 
which the classics of the Spiritualists occupy. They are 
not there at all, and their absence is owing to the simple 



Salathial Fogg Jones. 89 

fact that they are not worthy to be there. Literature is 
catholic. Literary men are not particular as to the 
source from which great thoughts come, and they will 
gather where they find them. They have not found 
them in the literature of Spiritualism. I state this as a 
fact, which he cannot deny, and I appeal to the literary 
men of the world as my witnesses. 

In the degree by which Spiritualism has failed to pro- 
duce a worthy literature of its own, has it failed to in- 
corporate itself as a vital force into any literature. In a 
few English novels we have seen evidences of its pres- 
ence, but even there it has furnished only machinery 
for mysteries, and not ideas for life. No poet of power 
has gone to it for his inspirations. While many literati 
have been attracted to its marvels, and not a small 
number of them have acknowledged their faith in the 
genuineness of its " manifestations," it finds no record 
in the characteristic products of their pens. And now, 
in view of all these facts, I declare my full conviction 
that Spiritualism, notwithstanding all its high preten- 
sions and its ambitious efforts, has imported no new in- 
tellectual food into the world, and brought no increment 
to its intellectual life. Has heaven been open, to scat- 
ter crumbs and broken victuals to children already fed 
with bread from the tree of a nobler life ? Have the 
dead come back to prove that they have only made 
progress toward imbecility and idiocy ? Have the 
angels of God forgotten to be wise, and the saints of 



go Concerning the Jones Family. 

God learned to be silly ? Is a religion, or a system of 
philosophy, or a revelation of whatever character, good 
for anything, or worthy of a moment's consideration, 
which gives nothing greater and more abounding in vi- 
tality than what we have had before — nothing great and 
vital enough to create a literature of its .own which will 
command the respect of the world and find its way 
through various channels of life into all literature ? Mr. 
Jones has common sense — or he used to have it. He 
may answer the question. 

I remember very well the boast that he and his friends 
made a few years ago, that the world was about to wit- 
ness a new dispensation, through the ministry and reve- 
lation of Spiritualism. We had outgrown Christianity, 
as the world once outgrew Judaism, they declared; and 
so, burning up our soiled and worn-out creeds, and cast- 
ing off the clothing of the Christian church, which had 
grown too strait for us, we were to emerge into a 
brighter light and a freer and nobler life. Well, have 
their boasts proved to be well-grounded ? They must 
not complain that I ask them this question, and say that 
I do not give them time enough, or refer me to the diffi- 
culty of the early steps of Christianity. There was no 
steamboat, no railroad, no telegraph, no universal ne'ws- 
paper, no printing-press, to wait upon the early steps of 
Christianity. The first wail in the little village of Beth- 
lehem that gave notice of the advent of The Redeemer 
did not reach outside of the walls of the stable where he 



Salathial Fogg Jones. 91 

lay ; but through the ministry of modern art — itself the 
child of Bethlehem's child — the first rap at Rochester 
was heard throughout the nation. Every appliance of 
Christian civilization has waited upon the early steps of 
Spiritualism, and within fifteen years it has been sown 
wherever steam and lightning can travel, and men can 
read the language which they speak. It has been free 
ever since to do what it would. It has published what 
it would. Prisons and scaffolds have not threatened 
those who received and entertained and advocated it. 
It has been patronized by the fashionable and the ti- 
tled. Royalty itself has lent its eyes and ears to its mar- 
vels, and petted the mediums through whom they were 
wrought. It has been brought fairly before the world, 
and now, what is to be said of the results ? 

Preliminarily, is it making progress to-day ? Does it 
occupy as large a place in the public mind of this coun- 
try and of other countries as it did some years ago ? Is 
it winning as many proselytes as it was winning ten 
years ago ? Has it not already called to itself its own, 
and ceased to be aggressive ? Is it not already dying 
from lack of power to nourish and bless those who have 
been attracted to it ? It is probable that Mr. Jones 
would not answer these questions as I should ; yet it 
seems to me as if there could be but one answer to 
them. I know that, as far as my acquaintance reaches, 
Spiritualism is making neither proselytes nor progress, 
and that many of those who were once its most ear- 



92 Concerning the Jones Family. 

nest defenders have grown cold toward it, or careless of 
it. It has shown no power to fertilize society, and no 
disposition to organize society for philanthropic effort. 
It has originated a few Utopian schemes and promised 
great things for human harmony and happiness ; but 
they have fallen to pieces, of their own dead weight, 
light and flimsy as they were. I cannot point to anything 
that Spiritualism is really doing to purify, elevate, and 
save mankind. I cannot find in it that principle of love 
which uproots selfishness, or leads the martyr to dare 
his death of fire. 

Now, where is the effete Christianity which was to be 
displaced by Spiritualism ? There never was an equal 
period in its history when it made more progress than 
it has made since Spiritualism was announced. The 
greatest revival the world ever saw occurred during that 
period. It has planted its feet in new fields, and is 
everywhere aggressive. This Spiritualism which was 
to supersede it, has hardly been a fly in the path of its 
gigantic progress. It is pushing its silent, individual 
conquests, and organizing its forces in the wilds of the 
West, on the shores of the Pacific, in Australia, and 
among the heathen nations of the world. It is gaining 
new victories near the centres of its power. It gives 
no sign of decay. It is more and more recognized as the 
grand, saving and reforming power of the world — as a 
religion to live by and die by. It finds its way into gov- 
ernmental institutions. It more and more pervades 



Salathial Fogg Jones. 93 

every kind of literature, and it is legitimate to declare 
that there is not a good thing in Spiritualism that Chris- 
tianity had not previously promulgated. 

There are some Spiritualists who deny that Spirit- 
ualism opposes Christianity. Indeed, there are some 
among them who claim that they are really the only 
enlightened Christians in the world, Spiritualism having 
interpreted Christianity to them. I am sure Mr. Jones 
is too honest to tell me this, because he has talked very 
differently to me many times. He knows that if Spirit- 
ualism is not in opposition to Christianity as a system 
of religion and salvation, there is nothing in it whatever. 
He knows, and so do his friends, that Spiritualism is 
at least in opposition to that form of Christianity which 
prevails in the world, and which marks its progress by 
such marvellous evidences of its vitality and power. 

Mr. Salathial Fogg Jones is eating husks when he 
might have corn. I beg him to cut the delusion loose, 
for it is a dying thing. There is nothing more in it for 
him or for the world — no more food, nor inspiration, 
nor light, nor life, nor blessing. All the good fellows 
are going my way. Let him come and join me I 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN JONES, 

MECHANIC. 

CONCERNING HIS HABITUAL ABSENCE FROM 
CHURCH ON SUNDAY. 

1HAVE often wondered why Benjamin Franklin Jones, 
and many others who are engaged in mechanical 
pursuits, should be so sceptical in all matters lying out- 
side of the domain of material things. There seems to 
be something in the constitution of the mechanical 
mind, or something in the nature of mechanical pur- 
suits, which tends to infidelity. It is notorious, that as 
a class, the mechanics of this country, and particularly 
those who are engaged in such branches as call for the 
most ingenuity and skill, are given to unbelief. I can- 
not explain this. I see the fact as it exists in manufac- 
turing communities and in the large cities, and am 
entirely at a loss to account for it. Why it is that con- 
stant dealing with the laws of matter and second causes 
should so induce materialism, and so hide the great 
first cause, I do not know. I only know that the coldest 
infidels I have ever known — men the most utterly faith- 



Benjamin Franklin Jones. 95 

less in spiritual things — men sceptical on all subjects 
which touch religion, and immortality, and revelation, 
and God — are mechanics, and there seems to be some- 
thing in their pursuits, or in their mental constitution, 
which makes them so. 

The number of these men in every New England 
community is large. We are a manufacturing people, 
and the best and most influential minds in nearly all 
our manufacturing towns are those of mechanics. I 
have been surprised at the contempt in which religion 
and its institutions are held in some New England towns 
where it is supposed that both are honored in an unusual 
degree. The truth is that, throughout New England, 
not more than one-third of the people go to church, or 
have anything to do with its support, and that third is 
very largely composed of farmers and merchants. The 
mechanical and manufacturing interests, notwithstand- 
ing their magnitude, contribute comparatively little 
to the maintenance of the institutions of Christianity. 
None can be more aware of the truth of the statements 
which I make than Christian mechanics, because they 
are constantly thrown into the society of those of their 
own class whose cold and sneering infidelity, and whose 
habitual disregard of the Sabbath and all Christian in- 
stitutions, are themes of constant sorrow or annoyance 
to them. I am sorry to believe that Benjamin Franklin 
Jones adds one to the number of these faithless men, 
and particularly sorry, because he has such natural 



g6 Concerning the Jones Family* 

strength of mind that he cannot fail to have great in- 
fluence upon those who are nearest him — upon his com- 
panions and his family. But I must leave these general 
remarks, for I began with the intention to say some- 
thing upon his habit of staying away from church on 
Sundays. 

He told a friend of mine the other day that he had 
not put his foot inside of a church for ten years. He 
made the statement, so my friend informed me, in a 
tone which indicated contempt not only for the church 
itself and the religion which it represents, but for all the 
men and women who respect them both. Now, I like 
his frankness. There is something in his position which 
I cannot but respect. It is different from the majority 
of those who spend their Sundays in laziness or pleasure. 
When they are questioned in relation to their very 
questionable courses, they take the position of culprits 
at once, and make their excuses — always, however, pro- 
testing that, they have the most profound respect for 
religion and its institutions. They make a merit of this 
respect, and put it forward as a substitute for the thing 
itself. Fools may be taken in by this sort of talk, but 
God and wise men can only have contempt for those 
who pretend to honor a religion whose institutions they 
treat with persistent neglect. 

If we speak to some of these men about their neglect 
of attendance upon the Sunday ministrations of the 
church, they will say that they can worship God as well 



Benjamin Franklin Jones. 97 

in the fields as they can in the sanctuary — that they 
can commune with Him quite as well alone, among the 
beauties of nature, as in the great congregation, sur- 
rounded by ribbons and artificial flowers. As indepen- 
dent propositions, these may be sound. I will not con- 
trovert them ; but when these men put them forward, 
they do it for the purpose of skulking behind them, and 
they know very well that they have no relation to their 
case. They know that they never worship God in the 
fields, and that they would be frightened at the thought 
of an act of communion with Him. Others will de- 
nounce the impurities and imperfections of the church, 
or find fault with the minister, or certain of the leading 
members. All kinds of apologies are put forward by 
these poor men to delude themselves and their neighbors 
with the belief that they are really better than those who 
go to church — that they have, at least, quite as much re- 
spect for religion as those who do. 

All this talk disgusts me, for I know that there is no 
sincerity in it. When a man tells me that he respects 
religion, I want to see him prove it in some practical 
way. If he really respects religion, he will give his life 
to it, and, as the smallest possible proof of respect that 
he can render, he will scrupulously attend upon its ordi- 
nances, and show to the world the side upon which he 
wishes his influence to count. No, when men tell me 
that they respect religion, and offer in evidence only 
their studied and persistent absence from all Christian 
5 



98 Co7iceming the Jones Family. 

ministrations, I have simply to respond that I do not 
respect them. They are a set of hypocrites and hum- 
bugs. They talk about the hypocrisy of the church! 
There is not such another set of hypocrites in America, 
as those who, while professing to respect Christianity, 
devote the Christian Sabbath to their own selfish ease 
or convenience, and regularly shun the assemblages of 
Christian men and women. Sometimes they try to 
prove their sincerity by throwing in their wives and chil- 
dren. They will tell people that they hire a pew, and 
dress their wives and children for the public, that they 
are willing that they should attend church, and that they 
have too much respect for religion to stand in anybody's 
way, while by every Sunday's example, they plainly de- 
clare to their wives and children that they regard the 
church and the religion which it represents as unworthy 
the respect and attention of a rational man. 

I repeat, then, that there is something in Benja- 
min Franklin Jones' position which I respect. He has 
brought himself to the belief that Christianity is a delu- 
sion — a cheat. He has no respect for religion, and does 
not hesitate to express his contempt for it. All preach- 
ing is blarney and cant to him ; all prayer is blatant 
nonsense addressed to a phantom of the imagination. 
Practically, his companions in absence from the church 
on Sunday occupy his most decidedly irreligious posi- 
tion, and their weakly lingering belief in the truth of 
Christianity, or in the possibility of its truth (which is 



Benjamin Franklin Jones. 99 

all their "respect " means), might as well, for any prac- 
tical purpose, be disbelief. His position is really bet- 
ter than that of those who pretend to respect religion, 
and who treat it with the same contempt that he does, 
because he is not a hypocrite. I speak of him, then, as 
the most respectable and decent man of his class. 

My desire is to give him one or two good reasons 
for going to church which do not depend upon the 
authenticity of Christianity, or upon the sacredness of 
the Christian Sabbath at all. My first reason is that 
unless a man puts himself into a fine shirt, polished 
boots, and good clothes once a week, and goes out into 
the public, he is almost certain to sink into semi-bar- 
barism. He knows that unless he can do this on Sun- 
day, he cannot do it at all, for he labors all the week. 
There is nothing like isolation to work degeneration in a 
man. There is nothing like standing alone, with no 
place in the machinery of society, to tone down one's 
self-respect. He must be aware that he is not in sym- 
pathy with society. He is looked upon as an outsider, 
because he refuses to come in contact with society on 
its broadest and best ground. It is a good thing for 
a man to wash his face clean, and put on his best 
clothes, and walk to the house of God with his wife 
and children on Sunday, whether he believes in Chris- 
tianity or not. The church is a place where, at the 
least, good morals are inculcated, and where the vices 
of the community are denounced. He can afford to 



100 Concerning the Jones Family. 

stand by so much of the church, and by doing so, say 
" Here am I and here are mine, with a stake in the wel- 
fare of society, an interest in the good morals of soci- 
ety." This little operation gone through with every Sun- 
day would give him self-respect, help him to keep his 
head above water, and bring him into sympathy with the 
best society the world possesses. A man needs to beau- 
tify himself with good clothes occasionally to assure 
himself that he is not brother of the beast by the side 
of which he labors during six days of every seven, and 
he needs particularly to feel that he has place and con- 
sideration in clean society. 

Another reason why he should go to church on Sun- 
day is that he needs the intellectual nourishment and 
stimulus which he can only get there. I suppose that 
he does not often consider the fact that the greatest 
amount of genuine thinking done in the world is done 
by preachers. I suppose he may never have reflected 
that, in the midst of all this din of business, and clash- 
ing of various interests — in the midst of the clamors 
and horrors of war, the universal pursuit of amusements 
and the vanities and inanities of fashion, and the indul- 
gence of multitudinous vices, there is a class of self- 
denying men, with the best education and the best tal- 
ents and habits, who, in their quiet rooms, are think- 
ing and writing upon the purest and noblest themes 
which can engage any mind. Among these men may be 
found the finest minds which the age knows — the most 



Benjamin Franklin Jones. ioi 

splendid specimens of intellectual power that the world 
contains. The bright consummate flower of our Amer- 
ican college system is the American ministry. Among 
these men are many who are slow — stupid, it may be 
— but there is not one in ten thousand of them who does 
not know more than Benjamin Franklin Jones does. 
He can learn something of them all, while some of them 
possess more brains and more available intellectual 
power than he and all his relatives combined. If he 
supposes the American pulpit to be contemptible, he 
is very much mistaken. He has staid away from it for 
ten years. During all these ten years I have attended its 
weekly ministrations, and I have a better right to speak 
about it than he has, because I know more about it. I 
tell him and his friends that I have received during these 
ten years more intellectual nourishment and stimulus 
from the pulpit than from all other sources combined, 
yet my every-day pursuits are literary while his are not. 
There is something in the pursuits of working men 
— I mean of men who follow handicraft — which ren- 
ders some intellectual feeding on Sunday peculiarly 
necessary. They work all day, and when they get home 
at night, they can do nothing but read the news, and in- 
dulge in neighborhood gossip. They are obliged to rise 
early in the morning, and that makes it necessary that 
they should go to bed early at night. They really have 
no time for intellectual culture except on Sunday. 
Then they are too dull and too tired to sit down to a 



102 Concerning the Jones Family. 

book. They always go to sleep over any book that taxes 
their brains at all. They know that there is nothing but 
the living voice which can hold their attention, and they 
know that that voice can only be heard in the pulpit. 
The working-man who shuns the pulpit on the Sabbath, 
voluntarily relinquishes the only regularly available in- 
tellectual nourishment of his life. He need not tell me 
that the pulpit has no intellectual nourishment for him. 
I know better. Philosophy, casuistry, history, metaphy- 
sics, science, poetry — these all are at home in the pulpit. 
All high moralities are taught there. All sweet char- 
ities are inculcated here. There are more argument 
and illustration brought to the support and enforcement 
of religious truths than all the other intellectual maga- 
zines in the world have at command ; and, quarrel with 
the fact as he may, he must go to church on Sunday, 
and hear the preaching, or be an intellectual starveling. 
His brain is just as certain to degenerate — his intellect 
is just as certain to grow dull — under this habit of stay- 
ing at home from church, as a plant is to grow pale 
when hidden away from the sun. 

But Benjamin Franklin Jones responds to this that he 
will not attend church because he does not believe in the 
doctrines that are preached there. Does he refuse to 
attend a political meeting which a gifted speaker is to 
address, because he is not of his way of thinking ? Does 
he stay away from the lecture of a man who has brains, 
because he cannot endorse his sentiments ? Why, he is 



Benjamin Franklin Jones. 103 

very much behind the age. The most popular lecturers 
of America have for years been those who have repre- 
sented the principles and sentiments of a small minority. 
Intellectual men have maintained their place upon the 
platform when their persons and their principles were 
held in abhorrence by the masses whom they addressed. 
It is not necessary for me to mention names, to prove 
this statement, for the facts are too fresh and too noto- 
rious. Does he decline to attend a circus because the 
performers differ with him as to the number of horses it is 
proper for a man to ride at one time ? Is it possible that 
he, who has been charging bigotry upon the church and its 
representatives so long, is a bigoted man ? Is it possible 
that he who has denounced the American Christian min- 
istry for intolerance is intolerant himself ? It looks like it. 
He is truly lame in this matter. His position is a 
very weak one. It is not based in any principle — it is 
based in prejudice. Besides, he is not truthful when 
he says that the utterances of the pulpit generally are 
incredible. I have been a constant attendant of church 
all my life, and I declare, without any hesitation, that 
three-quarters of the sermons I have heard have been 
other than doctrinal sermons. The majority of the ser- 
mons preached have their foundation in the eternal 
principles of right — in the broad moralities to which he 
and every other decent man subscribes. He knows 
that, as a system of morals, Christianity is faultless. He 
knows that if the world should live up to the morals of 



104 Concerning the Jones Family. 

Christianity — we will say nothing about it as a system of 
religion — there would be no murder, no war, no stealing, 
no wrong, — that everywhere men would walk in peace and 
concord and fraternal affection, and that the golden rule 
would be the universal rule of life. The pulpit is the 
spot of all others in the world where, through the won- 
derful agency of the human voice, these morals are taught ; 
and does he tell me that he will not go to church because 
he does not believe in what is taught there ? He does be- 
lieve at least three-quarters of the teachings of the pulpit. 
He does himself great wrong by holding himself aloof 
from an institution which would not only nourish his in- 
tellect, but instruct and confirm him in those moralities 
which are the only safeguard of that society which num- 
bers among its members his wife and children. 

Perhaps he can afford, or feels that he can afford, to 
teach his children that Christianity as a system of relig- 
ion, is a cheat, but he cannot afford to confound with 
it, and condemn with it, the moralities of Christianity. 
He cannot afford to teach his children by words or deeds 
that the great mass of the teachings of the pulpit are 
unworthy of consideration ; for their safety, their re- 
spectability, their prosperity, their happiness, all de- 
pend upon the adoption and practice of Christian mor- 
als. Does he teach them Christian morals ? Is he 
careful to sit down on the Sabbath, or at any other time, 
and instruct them in those moralities that are essential 
to the right and happy issue of their lives ? He has not 



Benjamin Franklin Jones. 105 

the face to do any such thing, for his position will not 
permit him to do it without shame. Well, if he refuses 
to do it, who will do it ? Unhappily, his wife is quite as 
much under his influence as his children, and unless 
those children go to church on Sunday, they will get no 
instruction in Christian morals whatever, except such as 
they may pick up at the public schools. 

These children of his are not to blame for being in 
the world. They came forth from nothingness in answer 
to his call, and they are on his hands. He is responsible 
to them, at least, for their right training. He is in per- 
sonal honor bound to give them such instructions in mor- 
als as will tend to preserve to them health of body and 
mind, and honorable relations with society. How will 
he do it ? By telling them that church-going is foolish- 
ness, and Sabbath keeping nonsense, and the teachings 
of the pulpit only tricks of priestcraft, and the amuse- 
ment of blockheads ? Not so. He must take these chil- 
dren by the hand and lead them to church, and show 
that there are, at least, some things that come from the 
pulpit which he respects. It will not be enough that he 
sends them and their mother. He must go with them, 
for, if he does not, they will soon learn the realities of 
the pulpit, and, in learning them, learn to pity him, and 
to hold his intolerance in contempt. He must stand by 
the pulpit as the great teacher of public and private 
morality, or do an awful injustice to the children for 
whose life and health and education he is responsible. 
5* 



WASHINGTON ALLSTON JONES. 

CONCERNING THE POLICY OF MAKING HIS BRAINS 
■MARKETABLE. 

JUDGING from recent conversations with this gentle- 
man, and from many things I have heard about 
him, he is not satisfied with the results of his life, thus 
far. He has tried various fields of effort, and has failed 
of the success he sought in all. He knows my honest 
friendship for him, and the measure of respect which I 
entertain not alone for his intellectual gifts, but for that 
high ideal of art and its mission which has been the only 
bar to his reward. He wrote a novel, which failed, 
simply because he refused to write one which would 
succeed. He erected a standard in his own soul, bowed 
to his standard, and then was disgusted because the hu- 
manity upon which he had turned his back would not 
applaud his doing. He wrote .a poem, classical without 
a doubt — powerful and beautiful in its way beyond ques- 
tion — but, somehow, the poem had no point of sympathy 
with the age which he believed ought to receive and 
love it. Behind these two books he sat in imperial 



Washington Allston Jones. 107 

pride, disgusted with the world which seemed so little in 
knowledge and so low in feeling — so unable to appreci- 
ate him, and so ready to give its applause to men of 
slenderer faculty and shallower motives. Will he per- 
mit me to say to him now, before it is too late, that the 
world will never come to him, and that he must go to 
the world or die voiceless ? 

The world is not in want, just at this time, we will say, 
of life-sized portraits in oil, with all their stately con- 
ventional accompaniments. The world happens to want 
photographs, and will have nothing but photographs. 
He chooses to stand by his pigments and his canvas 
and his camel's hair, and to starve, while all the world 
rushes by him to patronize the sun. He imagines that 
it would degrade him to have anything to do with photo- 
graphs. He would not make one — he would not color 
one — he would not touch one with one of his fingers, be- 
cause his idea of art, or what he chooses to consider art, 
is so high, that he could have nothing to do with the pro- 
duction of a photograph without a sense of humiliation. 
He will die rather than disgrace the art to which he is 
in honor married, and degrade the standard he has 
erected for himself. Let him die if it will be any satis- 
faction to him ; but the world will never thank him for 
it, and, moreover, will vote him a fool for his voluntary 
sacrifice. The only way for him is to meet the want of 
the world and make photographs — make the best photo- 
graphs that the world has seen — so that it shall come to 



108 Concerning the Jones Family. 

him and ask him to do it favors, and beg the privilege 
of paying him much honor and much money. 

I confess that I have a measurable respect for that 
ideal of art which refuses all compromise with popular 
prejudice, and, standing alone, strives to compel the 
homage of the world, and failing, stands in self-compla- 
cent pride to pity and despise those who will not bow to 
it. Yet this ideal upon which the issue of Washington 
Allston's life seems to be turning, has in it, to a fatal 
degree, the element of selfishness. What is art but a 
minister ? What is art but a vehicle by which he may 
transport the life which is in him to the souls by which 
he is surrounded — for their good, and not for his ? Cut 
off from its relations to life — to the life which produces 
it and that to which it is addressed — standing by itself — 
what is art but a phantom ? — a nothing with a name ? 
God has endov/ed this man with intellectual wealth. He 
has given him great power, and set him upon a throne 
where he can reason and judge and reach outward and 
upward into great imaginations ; he has given him the 
power to speak and to sing. For what purpose ? Is it 
that he may selfishly shut this wealth of his into a coffer, 
and close the lips of his utterance, from obedience to a 
standard of art which has more reference to him than 
to the world to which he owes service ? He is rich and 
must dispense. Who gave him his wealth ? Is it for 
him to stand and higgle with the world about the form 
or style in which it shall receive his gifts ? Is it for 



Washington Allston Jones. 109 

him to declare that the world shall have none of his ex- 
pression unless it be accepted in a certain form, which 
form shall have supreme consideration ? 

He has carried his reverence for his idea of art and 
his contempt for those who will not regard it so far that 
he cannot speak with patience of those who succeed in 
the fields which have witnessed his failure. He has 
learned to despise those whom the world applauds, be- 
cause he thinks that the world's applause can only be 
won by treachery to art. This contempt for those who 
succeed is the logical result of his own failure ; and now 
he sits alone, in selfish pride, a martyr, as he supposes, 
to his better ideal and his higher aim, the world uncon- 
scious meanwhile that he has in him the power to move 
and bless it. He has told me that he distrusts a book 
which sells, and has spoken with undisguised contempt 
of men who carry " marketable brains," as he was 
pleased to call them. 

And now we get at our subject. What are brains good 
for that are not marketable ? My belief is that a man 
who has brains is in duty bound to make them market- 
able. My position is that unless mind, under Christian 
direction and control, is marketable, it is useless ; and 
I must be permitted to use the word marketable in the 
largest sense. The world is as we find it — not as we 
would have it. We write, we speak, we paint, we give 
utterance to all forms of art, in order to make the world 
richer and better ; and unless the world will receive what 



HO Concerning the Jones Family. 

we utter, and take it into its life, it is not benefited, and 
our utterance is a failure. There are, doubtless, a few 
great souls, laboring in some difficult departments of art, 
that must labor for the few, and through these few find 
their way to the world, but these are exceptional cases. 
The case of our friend is not one of these, for he has 
undertaken only to address the world at large, and it is 
his fault that he has failed. He would not take the world 
as he found it. He intended that the world should take 
him as it found him. He did not go to the world to 
sell, throwing himself into its markets, but stood at his 
own door determined to compel the world to come to 
him and buy. The world did not come, and I do not 
blame it. 

In intellectual, no less than in commercial, affairs, the 
market is the first consideration. The manufacturer 
never adopts one style of fabric as that to which alone 
his effort of production shall be devoted, but studies the 
market, and shifts his machinery and modifies his ma- 
terial in accordance with the indications of the market. 
We hear of certain preachers who preach great sermons, 
such as a few only like to hear, or have the power to 
remember and appropriate. They have no right to 
preach such sermons. If they have any gold in them, 
they should reduce it to coin that will pass current with 
the people. There is a stiff and stilted set in occupa- 
tion in many of the American pulpits, who suspect a 
preacher who is very popular, and hold in contempt 



Washington Allston Jones. ill 

him who places himself in thorough sympathy with the 
crowd around him that he may reach and hold them, and 
who are particularly disgusted with what they call " sen- 
sational preaching." It seems better to them to preach 
to small congregations than to draw large houses by 
making their preaching marketable. Is this being all 
things to all men that they may save some ? Not at all. 
It is being one thing to a few men, whether they save 
them or not. St. Paul understood the matter of making 
his intellectual gifts and his preaching marketable. We 
know writers of magnificent power — some of them are 
certainly very greatly Mr. Jones's superiors in mental 
acquisition — who are burying their gifts in books that 
find no buyers. These men might as well be horse- 
blocks, so far as the world is concerned. They are 
doing nothing for the world. They have not consulted 
its market, and appear to know and care nothing for its 
wants. We know orators who never let themselves 
down to minister to the desire of those whom they ad- 
dress to be melted and moved, but who with stately 
dignity, insist on being rational and dull, and on driving 
from them those whom they desire to hold. 

Washington Allston Jones sympathizes with all these 
men, but does he not see how much a selfish pride lies 
at the bottom of their action ? I give him and them 
credit for that self-respect which shrinks from the tricks 
of the mountebank and the demagogue, but I charge 
him and them with a pride which is not consistent with 



1 1 2 Concerning the Jones Family. 

the position of the artist as a minister of life. With all 
his nobleness of nature, he has never been able to con- 
ceive of a higher motive of action, in a literary man, 
than the ambition to achieve literary distinction. He 
does not understand how a man can undertake a literary 
enterprise which has not literary reputation for its ob- 
ject ; and when some book is uttered for the simple 
purpose of doing good, by one who has it in him to do 
great things for himself — a book which does not even 
pretend to literary merit beyond that which lies in 
adapting means to ends — he curls his lip in contempt 
for the voluntary degradation. This man for whom he 
has this contempt, writes for the market, and the world 
accepts him, and he does the world good ; and if he did 
not write for a market the world would spurn him as it 
spurns Washington Allston Jones ; and he .would be de- 
prived, as Washington Allston is, of the privilege of 
doing the world good. 

I suppose our friend hugs to himself the delusion 
that he is in advance of his age, and that what the age 
fails to appreciate, posterity will receive at its full value. 
To leave out of consideration the selfishness of this 
fancy — as if he and his reputation were the only things 
to be taken into account — let me assure him that the 
coming age will have its own heroes to look after, and 
it will stand a very small chance of stumbling over his 
dead novel and his still-born poem. The only way 
for him to win the reputation which I know he desires, 



Washington A lis ton Jones. 113 

is to throw his life — his thinking and acting self — into 
this age, as a power to uplift and mould and bless it. 
He must come into the market. He must shape fys 
utterances to the want of the times. He must be con- 
tent to work for others, forgetful of himself, and to 
give to men, in cups from which they will drink it, that 
life with which God has filled him. 

But he despises his age. The age has not treated him 
well. The age is vulgar and low and rude and ungrate- 
ful. The age is mercenary and immoral. His wounded 
self-love has misled him. He is living in the greatest 
age of the world, and his soul only needs to be attuned 
to its great movements and events to find itself coined 
into words for their majestic music. 

" Every age 
Appears to souls who live in it (ask Carlyle) 
Most unheroic. Ours, for instance, ours ! 
The thinkers scout it and the poets abound 
Who scorn to touch it with a finger-tip ; 
A pewter age — mixed metal, silver-washed ; 
An age of scum, spooned off the richer past ; 
An age of patches for old gaberdines ; 
An age of mere transition, meaning nought 
Except that what succeeds must shame it quite, 
If God please." 

And now as I have broached Mrs. Browning upon this 
point, I will go further, and let her sing the rest of my 
paragraph. 



114 Concerning the Jones Family. 

" Nay, if there's room for poets in the world 
A little overgrown (I think there is), 
Their sole work is to represent the age — 
Their age, not Charlemagne's — this live, throbbing age 
That brawls, cheats, maddens, calculates, aspires, 
And spends more passion, more heroic heat, 
Betwixt the mirrors of its drawing-rooms, 
Than Roland with his knights at Roncesvalles. 
To flinch from modern varnish, coat, or flounce, 
Cry out for togas and the picturesque, 
Is fatal — foolish too. 

" Never flinch, 
But, still unscrupulously epic, catch 
Upon the burning lava of a song 
The full-veined, heaving, double-breasted age ; 
That, when the next shall come, the men of that 
May touch the impress with reverent hand, and say, 
' Behold — behold the paps we all have sucked ? ' 

'' This is living art, 
Which thus presents and thus records true life." 

Let him do what he can to make his age great. Let 
him be alike its minister and its mouthpiece. Let him 
give himself to his age, and his age will take care of 
itself, and the ages to come will be the guardian of his 
fame. 

When he spoke to me of " marketable brains," I 
understood him of course to use the phrase in a lower 
sense than that in which I have used it. I have not 
adopted his meaning, simply because it walks in the 
shadow of mine. A man who adapts the products of 



Washington Allsion Jones. 115 

his brain to the real wants of the world, is the man 
who sells his books and makes money by them. He 
ought to be sensible enough to know that a man who 
writes from no higher motive than the desire to win 
money, cannot meet the wants of the world, and that 
he who writes a marketable book must necessarily be 
something better than a mercenary wretch who would 
sell all that is godlike in him, for gold. Yet I will admit 
that the desire to win bread — nay, the ambition to ac- 
quire a competent wealth — is, in its subordinate place, 
a worthy motive in impelling the artist to make his 
brains marketable. Commerce puts its brains into the 
market, and nobody cries out " shame," or hints at 
humiliation. The brains of all this working, trading, 
scheming world are in the market. These " market- 
able brains " are the pabulum of progress everywhere ; 
and a writer is good for nothing for the world, who does 
not understand what it is to work for a living — what it is 
to expend life for the means of continuing life. Nay, I 
would go farther, and say that God has, by direct intent, 
compelled the worker in all departments of art to make 
his brains marketable, under penalty of starving. 

To the person of whom I write, all this is very dis- 
gusting. He feels that the artist ought to be king, and 
that grateful men should only be too glad to do homage 
and bring gifts to him. He is wrong. The people are 
kings, and he is their servant. The law announced by 
the Great Teacher on this point is universal, and with- 



n6 Concerning the Jones Family. 

out exception. A man is felt to be great only by reason 
of his power to administer to the life around him. Life 
licks the hand that feeds it. He thinks it a degrada- 
tion to go to the world with his brains, adapting their 
product to the popular want, and taking his pay in the 
currency of the country ; but it is this or something 
worse. Think of those kings of the old English litera- 
ture, who were obliged to sit and sneak in the anterooms 
of nobles, and beg the patronage of the rich and the 
great, and become lickspittles for the sake of the influ- 
ence that would sell their books, and give them position, 
and furnish them with bread to starve on and a garret to 
die in ! The world will not buy what it does not want, 
and he cannot blame it without being unreasonable. It 
is honorable to thirst for the world's praise. He needs 
its money, he really envies the success of others, and 
because praise and money and success are denied him, 
he buttons his coat to his chin, turns up his nose to the 
world, and, " grand, gloomy, and peculiar," stands apart. 
Washington Allston Jones mistakes entirely if he sup- 
poses the world to be a contemptible master ; and this 
failure to appreciate the world — this persistent under- 
estimate of the world — which he and all of his class en- 
tertain, is enough to account for his failure. The world 
deals with practical life, and is guided by experience 
and common sense. The world is at work to win bread 
and raiment and shelter. The world digs the field, and 
searches the seas, and trades and manufactures, and 



Wash ington A lis to n Jones. 117 

builds railroads and telegraphs and ships, and prints and 
reads newspapers. The world is full of the cares of the 
government. The world fights battles and pays taxes. 
The world is under a great pressure of care and work. 
This working, trading, fighting, careful world holds 
within itself the great, vital forces of society, the practi- 
cal interests of humanity, the wisest, brightest, noblest 
minds that live. And this world for which he has such 
contempt, is the only competent judge of the artist, and 
is always the final judge of art. " The light of the 
public square will test its value," said Michael Angelo 
to the young sculptor whose work he was examining. 
The remark was the bow of a respectful servant to his 
master. Washington Allston can write for dillettanti if 
he chooses — for an audience " fit, though few" — for the 
fellows of the mutual admiration society — and they will 
praise him ; but he knows that if he fails to get hold of 
this world which he affects to despise, he is powerless 
and without reward as a literary man. 

As I think of his kingly gifts of intellect, and of the 
power there is in him to bless mankind, art itself ap- 
pears before me in the likeness of Him who wore the 
seamless robe among humble disciples, and the crown 
of thorns between thieves. Ah! when art becomes the 
mediator between genius and the world, then does it 
answer to its noblest ideal, and confer the greatest 
glory upon the artist. He, in his realm, is almost as 
incomprehensible and unapproachable by the world as 



Ii8 Concerning the Jones Family. 

God was, before he expressed His love and His practi- 
cal good will through the gift of The Beloved. He had 
wrought augustly in the heavens, and filled the earth 
with glory. He had crowded immensity with the tokens 
of His power and the expression of His majestic thought ; 
but the world did not see him — would not receive him — 
regarded him without reverence. Why should he not 
despise the world ? Why, falling back upon the dignity 
of His Godhead, and sufficient for himself, did He not 
spurn the race which so disregarded itself and him ? 
Ah ! he pitied. He respected the characteristics of the 
nature He had made. He sent the choicest child of His 
Infinite Bosom down into the world to wear its humblest 
garb, and eat its homeliest fare, and perform its mean- 
est offices, and die its most terrible and disgraceful 
death, that the world might drink through Him the life 
of the Everlasting Father. In this way let our friend 
send his mediator into the world. Let him send the 
child of his bosom, clad in humble garments — charged 
only with a mission of love and practical good will to 
men. Let me assure him that he can only bring the 
world to love him and learn of him by making it the par- 
taker of his life through some expression of art which 
it can appropriate. No matter if it die. It shall rise 
again, and when it rises, rise to him, drawing all men 
unto it and unto him. 



REV. JEREMIAH JONES, D.D. 

CONCERNING THE FAILURE OF HIS PULPIT 

MINISTR Y. 

1 NEVER should have undertaken this paper, had I 
not been requested to do so by one of the profes- 
sional brethren of the Rev. Jeremiah Jones. It is not 
a pleasant thing to find fault with people, particularly 
with those whose faults are the results of natural organ- 
ization. My object in finding fault at any time, with 
any person, is his reform ; and the subject of this paper 
can never reform. He cannot make himself over again, 
into something different and better ; and this ink of 
mine will be wasted, unless it shall address other eyes 
than his. The assurance that other eyes will be inter- 
ested in what I have to say to him determines me to 
write this paper. 

Surveying the American pulpit, I find it occupied by 
men who can legitimately be divided into two great 
classes, and these, for the present purpose, I will call 
the poetical and the unpoetical. I am not sure that 
these designations are sufficiently definite, or even suf- 
ficiently suggestive, but I will tell him what I mean by 



120 Concerni?zg the Jones Family. 

them. The class which I denominate poetical is 
composed of men who possess imagination, strong and 
tender sympathies, profound insight into human char- 
acter and motive, and power to attract to themselves 
the affections of those around them. These men pos- 
sess also what we term individuality, in an unusual de- 
gree — a quality which carries with it the power to trans- 
mute truth into life — to resolve system into character — 
to appropriate, digest, and assimilate all spiritual food 
whatsoever, so that when they preach they do not 
preach as the mouthpieces of a school, or a sect, or a 
system, but as revelators and promulgators of a life. 
These are the preachers who touch men, because they 
preach out of their own life and experience. These are 
the men who speak from, the heart and reach the heart 
— the men who possess what, for lack of a better name, 
we call magnetism. The unpoetical class may roughly 
be denned by the statement that they are the opposites 
of the poetical. They have no imagination ; they are 
not men of strong and tender sympathies ; they do not 
possess fine insight (though some of them possess a 
degree of cunning which is mistaken for it); they have 
not the power to attract to themselves the affections of 
those around them ; they do not possess true individu- 
ality (though they may have peculiarities or idiosyncra- 
sies which pass for it) ; and, in their utterances, they 
are little more than the mouthpieces of the systems 
and schools to which they are attached. 



Rev. Jeremiah Jones, D.D. 121 

To the latter class I assign the Rev. Jeremiah Jones 
without the slighest hesitation, because nature has 
placed him in it. I have no expectation that he will 
ever be different from what he is. It is possible that 
some terrible affliction, or some great humiliation will 
soften his character, and develop his heart, and quicken 
his sympathies, but I could hardly pray for such dis- 
cipline as would be necessary to revolutionize his con- 
stitution. No ; he will live and die the same sort of a 
man he always has been — useful in some respects, self- 
complacent in all respects — an irreproachable, unlova- 
ble, sound, solid, dogmatic doctor of divinity. 

I give him credit for an honest Christian character 
and purpose, but I should be false to my convictions 
should I fail to tell him that I consider him and all 
who are like him to be out of place in the Christian pul- 
pit. His religion is mostly a matter of intellect. He is 
fond of preaching doctrine. He delights in what he is 
pleased to denominate theology. He rejoices in a con- 
troversy. He speaks as by authority. He denounces 
sin, as if he had never sinned, and never expected to 
sin. He unfolds what he calls "the scheme of salva- 
tion " as if it were a grand contrivance of the Supreme 
Being to circumvent Himself — a marvellous invention 
by which He is enabled to harmonize His justice with 
His pity. He has a " system of truth" to promulgate, 
and, in his mind, it seems essential that this system 
should be accepted in all its parts as the condition of 



122 Concerning the Jones Family. 

salvation. He is, indeed, the special guardian of the 
orthodoxy of his region. Alas ! for the poor candidate 
for the Christian ministry who may be obliged to pass 
under his examination ! Alas ! for any person who may 
presume to decide that a man can be a Christian with- 
out embracing his " system of truth," or that religion is 
not quite as much a matter of the brains as of the heart ! 
He lugs along into this present age, to its scandal and 
its shame, to the detriment and disgrace of the Chris- 
tian cause, the old Puritan idea that assent to a creed — 
that belief in certain dogmas has more to do with the 
soundness of a man's Christianity than anything else. 
He does not ask, first and foremost, in his inquiries 
concerning a man, whether his life is pure — pious to- 
ward God and loving and benevolent toward men — 
but whether he is sound in his " views." At this very 
moment, while he is reading these words, he is wonder- 
ing, not whether I am a Christian man, loving and ser- 
ving God and men, but whether I am orthodox or het- 
erodox in my " views ;" and because I hold his rigid 
scholasticism in contempt, he regards me as "loose" 
in my tl views," and, on the whole, dangerous in my 
teachings. I should like to ask him if this is not so. 
Has he not been troubled more with doubts about my 
orthodoxy, while reading this paragraph, than anything 
else ? 

I hope he will not be offended if I reveal to him 
the nature of his Sabbath ministrations, and endeavor 



Rev. Jeremiah Jones, D.D. 123 

to show him why he cannot hope to accomplish very- 
much for his Master. His manner is not humble — his 
spirit is not humble. He does not enter his church on 
Sunday morning crushed with a sense of his respon- 
sibility — feeling the need of aid and inspiration — filled 
with tender reverence toward God and love toward 
man. His utterances are those of a self-sufficient man. 
His prayers touch nobody. They are full of sonorous 
phrases culled from the sacred text ; they abound in 
passages of information addressed to the Deity ; they 
embrace all the objects of Christian solicitude and la- 
bor ; they range the earth through all the degrees of 
latitude and longitude for subjects ; the sailor, the sol- 
dier, the heathen, the Jews, the Roman Catholics and 
all other errorists, the foreign missionaries, the civil au- 
thorities — all these come in by catalogue. These broad 
generalities of petition, which do not grow, as he very 
well knows, out of any immediate impulse of desire, 
but only out of a general impression of desirableness, 
have not the slightest power to lead a congregation in 
genuine prayer. The thing sounds well. The words are 
well chosen and well pronounced, but they do not lift 
a heart to its Maker, or give voice to the aspirations of 
a single soul. 

His sermon is like his prayer, and carries with it the 
idea that he is safe, and comparatively independent. 
It is as if he were to stand in his pulpit, and say, " Here 
am I, Rev. Jeremiah Jones, D.D., safe, by the grace of 



124 Co7icer7iing the Jones Family. 

God, forever, with a message to deliver. Repent and 
believe what I believe, and you will be saved ; refuse to 
repent and believe, and you will be damned. Take 
things in my way, see things as I see them, adopt my 
opinions and my system, and you will be all right. If 
you do not, then you will be all wrong, and I wash my 
hands of all responsibility for your destruction." Salva- 
tion would seem, in his scheme, to be a matter of 
machinery. He preaches just what he was taught to 
preach at the theological seminary, and has not taken a 
single step in advance. It is the same old brain stuff, 
unsoftened by a better love, unfertilized by a better ex- 
perience, without life or the power to enrich life. He puts 
before his hearers a skeleton, and holds them responsi- 
ble for not seeing and admitting that it is a beautiful 
form of life. He gives them a system and a scheme, when 
they need a life and a heart. He insists on driving them 
by threats to Him who, with a different spirit and a differ- 
ent policy, said " Come to me." I do not wish to be 
understood that I blame him for all this, for he cannot very 
well help it. I only state the matter in detail, to prove 
that the pulpit is not the place for him. He is honest 
enough, but he has no sensibility. He has mind enough, 
but he has none of that poetic or spiritual insight which 
enables other men to seize the essence of that scheme 
of truths with whose adjustment into form and system 
he so constantly busies himself. I once entered the 
study of a preacher who had been for three months out 



Rev. Jeremiah Jones, D.D. 125 

of public employment, and who, to demonstrate to me 
his industry, assured me that he had written during that 
period thirty-six sermons. Indeed, he showed me the 
pile. Now there was a job which the Rev. Jeremiah 
Jones could have done as well as he, but neither he, nor 
any other man who could do it, is fit to write a sermon 
at all. Moved by no special want of the souls around 
him, taking no suggestions from the living time, he 
wrote sermons — very sound sermons, doubtless — but 
sermons with no more power in them to move men than 
there is in a mathematical proposition. The Rev. Jere- 
miah Jones seems to feel that the truth is the truth, and 
that if he promulgates it with an honest purpose, it is 
all that is necessary. Men occasionally find their way 
into his pulpit, however, to whom his congregation give 
their hearts before they have uttered ten sentences, and 
why ? The heart instinctively acknowledges the creden- 
tials of its teacher. There is something about some 
men, in the pulpit, which draws my heart to them at 
once. I know by their bearing, by the sound of their 
voices, by every emanation of their personality, that 
their hearts are on a sympathetic level with all human- 
ity — that they are bowing tearfully under their own bur- 
den while they help me to bear mine — that they are my 
fellows in temptation, in struggle, in aspiration. 

This poetic instinct — this power to reach through 
words and phrases, and forms and types and figures, and 
to grasp the naked truths of which they are only the 



126 Concerning the Jones Family. 

representatives — is essential to any man who feeds the 
people. Dr. Jones is fond of creeds and catechisms ; 
and those who listen to him are instructed in creeds and 
catechisms ; but he might just as hopefully undertake to 
make a living tree out of dry chips, as a living Christian 
out of creeds and catechisms. This poetic instinct or 
power is the solvent of creeds and catechisms — the gastric 
juice that softens them into chyle, and the absorbants 
that suck from them their vital fluid for the soul's nour- 
ishment. But why do I talk to him about this poetic 
faculty ? He does not understand me. He does not 
comprehend me at all. He thinks that I am foggy and 
fanciful — transcendental and nonsensical ; but it is he — 
stolid pretender to solidity and sound sense — who is 
foggy and fanciful. He thinks and calls himself a 
matter-of-fact man, when he is only a matter- of- form 
man. The poet is the man who touches facts. The 
poet is the man of common sense, who finds and re- 
veals the inner life and meaning of things. The true 
poet in a free pulpit is a man in his place, and no other 
man is fit for the place. When the true poet speaks 
from the pulpit, the people hear ; and they will hear 
gladly no other man. He is the only man who can re- 
veal a congregation to itself. The great charm of The 
Great Teacher to the woman at the well was His power 
to tell her all the things that ever she did, and that was 
her sole recommendation of Him. 

There are not so many preachers of Dr. Jones' class 



Rev. Jeremiah J 'ones , D.D. 127 

in the world now as there were once, thank God ! It 
was this brain Christianity — this intellectualism — this 
scholasticism — that gave root to those great controver- 
sies and schisms which disgraced Christianity, alike in 
the judgment of history and the eyes of a faithless world. 
Pride of theological opinion, sectarian partizanship, 
strifes of words, splittings of hairs, formalisms, — these 
have been the curse of Christianity and the clog upon 
its progress in all ages. He and those who are like him 
have made a complicated and difficult thing of that 
which is exquisitely simple. He has surrounded that 
fountain which flows with a volume of sparkling bounty 
for the cleansing and healing of all humanity, with 
hedges of words and forms, and conditions and preju- 
dices ; yet he is too blind to see it. But I see his class 
fading out, and another and a better coming in, and I 
mark with gratitude the change in the general aspect 
of the Christian enterprise. The differences between 
sects are growing small by degrees and beautifully less. 
Brother grasps the hand of brother across the chasms 
which the fathers made. Names do not separate as 
they once did those whom the common reception of 
the vital truths of Christianity has made one. Love 
unites those whom logic and learning have long divided. 
And Dr. Jones, with his dry doctrinal discourses, his 
array of redemptive machinery, his denunciations and 
threatenings, his fulminations against opposing sects, 
his pride of opinion, and his hard, unpoetic nature, is 



128 Concerning the Jones Family. 

out of place in a pulpit which is already far in advance 
of him. 

I recently wrote a paper for the benefit of an intel- 
ligent relative of the Doctor concerning his habit of 
staying away from the church on the Sabbath. I found 
serious fault with him for his delinquencies in this re- 
spect. I undertook to present to him sufficient reasons 
for reform, and prominently among those reasons I 
stated that he needed the intellectual stimulus which, in 
his circumstances, he would only secure by attendance 
on the ministrations of the pulpit. I do not retract what 
I said to him at all. I should advise him to hear Dr. 
Jones preach, rather than to hear nobody, spending his 
Sabbaths in idleness ; yet I cannot hide from him the 
fact that such men as Dr. Jones are responsible to a 
great extent for the thinly attended Christian meetings 
of the Sabbath. I cannot help feeling that those 
preachers who find themselves without power to draw 
men to them by the beauty of their lives and characters, 
and by the adaptedness of their teachings to the popular 
want, and by that magnetism of poetic or spiritual sym- 
pathy which is the heavenly baptism, are doing more 
than they imagine to depopulate the churches. I con- 
fess to no small degree of sympathy with those who pre- 
fer staying at home to hearing them preach ; for though 
I am sometimes stirred intellectually by them, I am 
never moved religiously and spiritually. Let us look 
at the churches for a moment, and mark what we see. 



Rev. Jeremiah Jones, D.D. 129 

Here is a church with a man in the pulpit with great 
intellectual gifts and excellent scholarship. His ser- 
mons are models of English composition. He is known 
in all the churches as a sound man. Look over his con- 
gregation : two, three, four, in a pew — old men, steady 
men, pious women — some asleep — all decorous. We 
will see the same sight fifty-two Sundays of the year. 
The teaching is good enough, but there is no motion. 
The instruction is sound, but there is no impulse. How 
many respectable, sleepy, sound preachers and churches 
are there in this country which show no change from 
Sabbath to Sabbath and from year to year, and which 
make no aggressive inroads upon the worldly life which 
environs them ? Well, here is another church, whose 
preacher never was celebrated for the soundness of his 
"views" — who, indeed, never paid very much atten- 
tion to his " views ; " but who tried to do something — 
tried to introduce a new life into his church and into the 
community in which he lived. What is there abotit this 
man that draws the crowd to him ? He is not so intel- 
lectual as his neighbor ; he is not so good a scholar as 
his neighbor ; he cannot write so fine a sermon as his 
neighbor, but he draws a church full of people. The 
young flock to him ; his Sunday-school is the largest to 
be found for many miles around him, and his church is 
recognized as a thing of power and progress. This man 
has reached the hearts of his people, through the sym- 
pathies of his poetic nature. He has touched them 
6* 



130 Concerning the Jones Family. 

where they live — not where they think. He has melted 
them, moulded them, moved them. I am sure that thin 
churches are very much attributable to thin ministers — ■ 
not thin in brains, or scholarship, but thin in heart and 
thin in human sympathy and in spirituality — thin where 
they should be fullest. 

Dr. Jones, and his brethren of the pulpit, very rare- 
ly get honestly talked to from the pews, but they could 
learn a great deal more from them than they imagine, 
if the pews would talk to them honestly. They rarely 
hear the truth. Their friends praise them, and their 
enemies shun them. Let me say this to them : that 
when they preach they preach with such an air of au- 
thority, and such an assumption of superiority, and such 
an apparent lack of sympathy with my weaknesses and 
trials, that I find myself rising in opposition to them. 
I think that all those hearts which have not schooled 
themselves to accept their teachings as they are ren- 
dered, are affected as mine is. I hope they will not 
deceive themselves with the thought that these feelings 
are the offspring of depravity, for they are no such 
thing. They are the spirit's protest against their right 
to teach. Very differently do many other men af- 
fect me. Ah ! well do I remember one, sleeping now 
within a few rods of where I write, and waking un- 
counted miles away beyond the blue ether that draws 
the veil between my eyes and heaven, who took my 
heart in his hand whenever it pleased him. He had an 



Rev. Jeremiah Jones, D.D. 131 

intellect as bright and keen and strong as any pulpit 
holds, but his power was not in that. He preached a 
sermon that a tasteful scholar would call brilliant, but 
his power was not in the brilliancy of his sermons. His 
power was in his sanctified, spiritualized humanity, that 
never blamed but always pitied me, and took me into its 
charitable arms and blessed me, that held my hand and 
gave me loving fellowship, that unselfishly poured out 
its life that the life of all humanity might be raised to a 
higher level. Dr. Jones is too great in his own estima- 
tion. He is too much impressed with his own dignity. 
This other man was humility's personification, and car- 
ried a sense of his unworthiness as a constant burden. 
Ah ! I fear that Dr. Jones has not learned that the weak 
do not commit their burdens to the strong. Let him 
learn of his children then, who seek for refuge in their 
mother's slender arms and not in his. 

I said at the outset that I had no expectation of re- 
forming him, because it is not in him to be reformed. 
He lacks the insight to apprehend spiritual things ; he 
is harsh ; he is coarse ; he dwells in forms and phrases ; 
he is constitutionally imperious ; he is not sympathetic ; 
he is not tempted as other men are. This lack of sym- 
pathy in his nature has cut him off from participation in 
the severest trials and struggles that ever visit the Chris- 
tian soul. He cannot have charity for others. But 
there are some who will read this paper and gather per- 
haps a valuable hint from it. It will not have been writ- 



132 Concerning the Jones Family, 

ten in vain if one preacher learns that his power and 
usefulness in the pulpit do not reside either in the ortho- 
doxy or the heterodoxy of his " views," do not reside in 
any system of theology or in any intellectual power, but 
do reside in a spiritual life, which, acting through its 
sympathies, by apprehension of and application to hu- 
man need, nourishes, elevates, and spiritualizes human 
character. 



STEPHEN GIRARD JONES. 

CONCERNING THE BEST WAY OF SPENDING HIS 

MONEY. 

THE art least understood in this country, where 
money is made easily and quickly, is that of 
spending it wisely and well. Most men think that if 
they could make money they would run the risk of 
spending it properly ; and these same men criticise their 
fortunate neighbors ; yet it is doubtless true that the 
poor do not monopolize the wisdom of the world, and 
that if they were to change places with the rich, money 
would be no better spent than it is now. There are 
enough poor men who succeed, from time to time, in 
getting rich, to show that wealth rarely brings with it 
the wisdom which will dispense it with comfort and 
credit to its possessor and with genuine benefit to the 
world. Of how few men of wealth can it be said that 
they spend their money well ! One is niggardly, another 
is lavish ; one runs into sports and debaucheries, another 
into extravagance in equipage ; one apes the fashion- 
able, or does what he can to buy social position, another 



134 Concerning the Jones Family. 

separates himself from others by using his money to 
thrust his personal eccentricities upon the public ; one 
expends thousands in ostentatious charities, and there is 
occasionally one who impoverishes himself and his family 
by his improvident beneficence. Caprice and impulse 
seem to govern the spending of money more than princi- 
ple, with the large majority of those who have money to 
spend. 

It is a good sign for a man who has made money to 
take to spending it in any way that is not vicious. It usu- 
ally shows that he is getting over the excitement of pur- 
suit — that the pleasures of seeking wealth are beginning 
to pall, and that his heart is looking for a fresh delight. 
It seems to me to be a good sign, I say, for a man to 
reach this point, for it proves that he is not a miser. 
When a man can content himself with a never-ending 
search for wealth, or rather, when a rich man can be 
content with the pleasure of adding to wealth which he 
can never use, and which will be most likely to damage 
his children, it is evident that he possesses a very sor- 
did nature, or that his character has been made sor- 
did by his absorbing pursuit of gain. To begin to dis- 
pense with one hand what the other has gained, and 
still may be gaining, is to assume a healthy attitude. 
A man who does this is not spoiling. 

It happens in this country, where estates are not 
entailed, that there are but a few families which, for 
any considerable number of generations, remain rich. 



Stephen Girard Jones. 135 

Wealth, when left to voluntary management, is almost 
uniformly dissipated in two or three generations, so 
that the great-grandchild nearly always is obliged to be- 
gin just where the great-grandfather did. Oftener than 
otherwise the reach of a fortune is briefer than this. It 
is thus that men are not bred to the management and 
the expenditure of wealth. Our rich men are men who 
have made their money — men who have spent their 
youth in learning how to make it. On becoming rich, 
they find that there is one part of their education which 
has been neglected, viz. : that which relates to the best 
methods of spending money. They are not misers ; 
they are not sordid men ; they would be glad to do 
something which would prove to the world that they are 
not altogether ungrateful for the handsome way in which 
it has treated them. Moreover, there is a call within 
them for repayment in comfort, or some form of satisfac- 
tion for the toil and care which it has cost them to win 
wealth. Many a man on reaching wealth has found 
himself confronted by the great problem of his life, and 
many a man, unable to solve it, has given up the thought 
of spending, and gone back to money-getting to seek 
his sole satisfaction in the excitement of the pursuit. 
Not unfrequently the process of getting money has been 
so absorbing, and has so shut out of the mind all culture 
and all generous pleasure, that the spending of money 
can fill no want. 

I have said thus much generally on this subject, that 



136 Concerning the Jones Family. 

my friend Mr. Stephen Girard Jones may attach suffi- 
cient importance to what I have to say to him. He has 
been fortunate in business. His enterprise and industry 
have been abundantly rewarded. All his adventures 
have been prospered, and he is to-day the richest of all 
the Joneses. What is he going to do with his money? 
He has arrived at the point when this inquiry has, I 
am sure, profound interest for him. He is not a man 
who can be content with the life -long task of acquisition. 
He wishes to give an expression to his wealth, for his 
personal satisfaction, and for the purpose of adding 
privileges to the lot of those whom he loves. 

In laying out his plans for spending money, the first 
consideration is safety for himself and his family. Any 
plan which contemplates idleness or dissipation for him- 
self or his children, is illegitimate, and will prove to be 
ruinous. I am not afraid that he will ever become idle, 
or, even, that he will become devoted to any form of 
vicious indulgence. His habits of industry and sobriety 
are well formed, and I do not think that he is in any 
personal danger. The danger relates entirely to his 
family. He had a hard time when he was a boy, and 
through all his early manhood worked severely. He 
has frequently said to his friends that he did not intend 
that his children should be subjected to as much hard- 
ship as he had been. Now, there is danger that his pa- 
rental tenderness will injure these children. Will he per- 
mit me to ask him what harm those early hardships of 



Stephen Girard Jones. 137 

his inflicted upon him ? Was it not by the means of 
these hardships that he learned to achieve his success ? 
Then why does he so tenderly deprecate these hardships 
for his children ? Let me warn him that through his ten- 
derness for his children his wealth may become — nay, is 
quite likely to become — a curse to them. 

This notion that wealth brings immunity from indus- 
try is the ruin of thousands every year. I do not in- 
tend to convey the idea that this man's children shall all 
work in the same way that he has done, but that neither 
girls nor boys of his shall ever receive the impression 
that they can live reputably or happily without the sys- 
tematic and useful employment of their minds, or their 
hands, or both. Let him give them all a better educa- 
tion than he had, and subject them to the same rigid 
rules of labor and discipline which are applied to their 
poorer classmates. Above all things, they should be 
taught that they must rely upon themselves for their 
position in the world, and that all children are mean- 
spirited and contemptible who base their respectability 
on the wealth of their father. Let him give all his boys 
a business and assist them in it sparingly, and with 
great discrimination. Let no son of his "lie down "on 
him, but make all the help he gives him depend upon 
his personal worthiness to receive it. Money won with- 
out effort is but little prized, and he may be sure that he 
will get few thanks from his children for releasing them 
from the necessity of industry. Nobody knows better 



138 Concerning the Jones Family. 

than he, how necessary industry is to the comfort and 
pleasure of living, and it should be his special care, in 
all his schemes for spending money upon his family, 
that these schemes should involve family employment 
or improvement. Better a thousand times throw his 
money into the river, than permit it to spoil his chil- 
dren. 

There is danger also to the community in which he 
lives, and to the humble men by whom he is surround- 
ed, in indiscreet benefactions. He is impulsive ; his 
money now comes to him easily ; and it is not hard for 
him to toss a gratuity to those whom he knows will be 
glad to receive it. Universal observation proves that 
money which does not cost anything is rarely well spent. 
Men will thank him profusely for the dollar which he 
gives them for some insignificant service, but that 
dollar is pretty certain to be spent upon their vices, 
and to help to make them beggars and flunkies. He, 
doubtless, finds himself surrounded by men who would 
" sponge " him gladly — who think and say that he can 
give them any amount of money "and never feel it." 
It is possible that there are a few mean-spirited Joneses 
who are already wondering whether he intends to leave 
them any money, or who have already asked him for 
" assistance." Let him never dismiss an application for 
help without examination ; but he should be very care- 
ful how he gives money to those who are able to earn it. 
Let him never think it a disgrace to be thought mean 



Stephen Girard Jones. 139 

and niggardly by those who wish to get his money, with- 
out rendering an equivalent for it. 

It is not necessary for me to tell him that no subscrip- 
tion paper ever starts within five miles of him that does 
not come to him before it completes its round. Now he 
should not get sick of the sight of these petitions. The 
offices of charity are never complete, and public spirit 
will always find work to do in fresh measures of im- 
provement. It is right that he, who has been so abun- 
dantly prospered, should be abundantly charitable. It 
is right that he, who has so large a stake in public or- 
der and general prosperity, should minister generally 
to public improvement. The real danger with him, is, 
that he will give in such a way as to relieve others of the 
burden of duty which they should carry. This, I con- 
fess, is not the common weakness of rich men, but it 
would be the common error of the community were he 
to have its will. There is a contemptible spirit per- 
vading the social body which would gladly shirk the 
cost of supporting public charities and public institutions 
and public improvements and throw it upon rich men. 
Stephen Girard Jones is a member of a church ; and I 
am ashamed to say that there is quite a general feeling 
among the members that he could pay the entire ex- 
penses " without feeling it." I suppose he might do this 
without suffering very much pecuniary inconvenience 
from it ; but if he were to do it it would damage not 
only the church but him, The jealousy of the very 



140 Concerning the Jones Family. 

men who would gladly shirk expenses that they would 
load upon his shoulders, would destroy the harmony of 
the church and drive him from it It will sometimes fall 
to his lot to pay that which niggardly souls refuse to pay, 
after the willing ones have exhausted their ability. Let 
him stand squarely up to this work, like the noble man 
he is. Never let it be seen by the community that he 
has any desire to avoid expenditures which it belongs 
to him to make. Let him do his part scrupulously well. 
Let every man see and feel that while he will not re- 
lieve others of burdens which belong to them, he is de- 
termined to carry all which belong to him, to the last 
ounce. Let society feel that it can rely upon him at all 
times for that measure of help which it belongs to him 
to render. 

I am aware that I have said but little to him, as yet, 
as to the proper way of spending money, but I have nar- 
rowed the field of inquiry. I have told him never to 
spend it in such a way as to destroy the industrious 
habits of his family or to feed the vices of the poor men 
around him, or to foster a mendicant spirit among his 
relatives, or to relieve general society from the burdens 
which should be equitably distributed among its constit- 
uents; and now, let me go further and say that all osten- 
tation is vulgar. It is quite the habit of men who be- 
come rich to show off their wealth by building large and 
costly houses, and furnishing them at great expense, 
and displaying luxurious equipage. The men who do 



Stephen Girard Jones. 141 

this are very rarely those who have lived in fine houses, or 
had practical acquaintance with luxurious domestic ap- 
pointments ; but this seems to be the only way in which 
they can give expression to their wealth. It is, I admit, 
better than nothing. Streets and building-sites are im- 
proved by it ; upholsterers are benefited by it ; various 
tradesmen are enriched by it ; but, after all, ostentation 
is vulgar, and, moreover, it is not to his liking at all. I 
know he would not enjoy a splendid house ; but he would 
enjoy a better one than he is in now — therefore, let him 
build it. He has good common sense and very little 
taste ; therefore, with only general directions, let him 
pass this business into the hands of the best architect 
his money can secure. Let him buy good taste, and 
simply insist on convenience and solidity. Let him 
build a house which will be in good taste a hundred 
years hence, so that it may be delighted in by his chil- 
dren and his grandchildren. 

It may seem impertinent to tell a man who has been 
shrewd enough to make money that he is not shrewd 
enough to spend it, but unless he has good advice, at 
every step of his progress, in starting an establishment 
— that is, in building his house, furnishing it, laying out 
his grounds, etc., etc., — he will be sure to excite the 
ridicule of his friends, and bring mortification to him- 
self. It is quite the habit of men who have made money 
to grow self-sufficient, and to suppose that, because they 
have succeeded so well in one department of effort, they 



142 Concerning the Jones Family. 

are equal to any. A practised eye can tell these men 
always, by the barren spots and the uncultivated and un- 
occupied spots which their management betrays. There 
will always be something to show that the establishment 
belongs to the man, and that the man does not belong 
to the establishment — something to show by its incom- 
pleteness the incompleteness of the owner's education — 
a library without books, a palace without pictures, a gar- 
den without flowers or fruit, luxury without comfort, or 
something of the sort. Our friend can have such a place 
as this very easily, by simply taking the whole matter 
into his own hands and assuming that he knows all that 
is necessary to know at starting ; but it will be far better 
for him, and far more for his credit, to assume nothing, 
— to assume that he knows nothing, and to look upon 
the building and equipment of an establishment as a 
part of his education. 

I can imagine nothing more delightful or more useful 
in family life than the two or three years of study and 
development which attend the proper building of a 
house and the appointment of the details of a generous 
establishment. If our friend and his wife and his sons 
and daughters, beginning with the assumption that they 
know nothing of the subject, devote themselves to study 
and conversation on domestic architecture and land- 
scape gardening, and furniture and books and pictures, 
seeking for information and suggestions from every 
source, they will be surprised and delighted to find in 



Stephen Girard Jones. 143 

the end that they have entered into a new life. They 
will find that they have grown quite as rapidly as their 
house has grown, and that their grounds and gardens 
have been developed no more than their minds. They 
will learn, in short, how to spend money for themselves 
in a way which ministers to their growth, their industry, 
and their happiness. They become the pupils of the 
artists and scholars and artisans whom they employ, 
studying under the most favorable circumstances ; and 
they will find that an education thus pleasantly inau- 
gurated may be pursued through life. It may be pursued 
in books, in society, in travel. 

There is much that I might say upon this subject of 
spending money as it relates to other people, in differ- 
ent circumstances, but I am speaking especially of 
Stephen Girard Jones — a good type of "our successful 
men." He will find that a costly table will give him 
the gout and his children the dyspepsia ; therefore let 
him live plainly. He will find that luxurious clothing 
only ministers to the vanity of his children ; therefore 
let him insist that it shall be simply good, and chaste, 
and tasteful. He will find that his personal necessities 
are limited, and that unless he permits his wealth to 
produce a brood of artificial wants, he cannot ex- 
pend his money upon his children or himself. Let 
him have an eye to those around him. The greatest 
kindness he can show to the poor is to give them em- 
ployment, and to pay them for it well and promptly. 



144 Concerning the Jones Family. 

No matter if he does not really need their service. If 
they need his money, let him make a service for them. 
Above all things he should not give them money, un- 
less calamity overtake them or they become unable to 
labor. I cannot too strongly insist that in all his deal- 
ings with society, with the poor, and with his children, 
he shall never depreciate in their minds the value of 
money. He should never permit himself, by his way of 
spending or bestowing money, to convey the idea that 
money has cost him nothing. For money is sacred. It 
is the price of labor of mind and body, and by some 
persons, at some time, somewhere, was dug from the 
ground, or drawn from the sea. Because he has been 
fortunate in accumulating it, he has no right so to spend 
it as to convey to the public an incorrect idea of its 
cost and true value. 

After all, I imagine that he will find it very difficult 
to spend well that which Providence has favored him 
with in his home life and in the ordinary charities 
which appeal to him. In closing, I hope he will per- 
mit me to suggest that there is a class of charities and a 
class of public objects which make special appeal to him. 
The great majority of his fellow-citizens — even those 
who possess what we denominate a competence — have 
nothing left to pay after defraying the expenses of their 
individual and home life, and contributing their portion 
to the support of society and the ordinary charities. 
For a great hospital, for a literary or a religious institu- 



Stephen Girard Jones. 145 

tion, for a public library, for a public gallery of art, 
they have nothing. These things exist through the 
contributions of such men as Mr. Jones, or they do not 
exist at all. They are costly, and must be bought by 
men of superabundant wealth. Mr. Jones is a rational 
man, and knows already that he has more wealth than 
he and his family can advantageously spend. He 
knows, also, that it is always best for a man to be his 
own executor. If he proposes to do anything for the 
world he should do it now. He should see to the expen- 
diture of his own money, and reap the satisfaction of 
seeing his generation enjoying the fruit of his benefac- 
tions. This waiting until death to give away useless 
money is the height of folly. The money is his to 
spend ; let him spend it, and thus multiply the sources 
of his satisfaction. It is foolish for him to wait until he 
is dead to do a deed from which he has the right to 
draw pleasure. Let him make what he can out of his 
life, and get what satisfaction he can out of his money. 
There are many chances that it will be wasted or misap- 
plied if he leaves it to be administered after he shall 
have passed away. 
7 



NOEL JONES. 

CONCERNING HIS OPINION THAT HE KNOWS 
PRETTY MUCH EVERYTHING. 

I CANNOT tell whether Noel Jones believes he knows 
as much as he pretends to know, or whether he as- 
sumes to know everything as a matter of policy. I am 
simply aware that there is no subject presented to him 
in practical science, in art, in philosophy, in morals, in 
religion, in politics, in literature, in society, upon which 
he does not assume to entertain a valuable opinion, and 
that he pretends to be competent to direct every affair, 
and guide and control every interest with which he has 
anything to do. It seems to be a matter of principle 
with him to follow no man's lead, and to refuse to admit 
for a moment that any man's lead, except his own, can 
be worthy of following. I never knew him to ask advice 
of anybody. It has always seemed to me as if he re- 
garded such a measure as an exhibition of weakness — 
one which would compromise his position and bring him 
to personal disgrace. No, he is authority on all sub- 
jects, an expert in all arts, an adept in all affairs ; I 



Noel Jones. 147 

do not know of a position for whose duties he would 
admit himself to be incompetent, from that of a milliner 
to that of a minister. 

In all my dealings with the world, I have noticed that 
the wisest men make the smallest pretensions. The 
prominent characteristic of all really great men is teach- 
ableness — readiness to learn of everybody, respect for 
the opinions of others, and modesty touching their own 
attainments. Sir Isaac Newton was so far from being 
a vain or pretentious man, that he had the humblest 
estimate of his own knowledge. Baron Humboldt was 
as simple and unpretending as a child. There are men 
among the living in this country — the mention of whose 
names is not necessary to call up their faces — whose ex- 
ceeding simplicity is only equalled by their exceeding 
wisdom. A pretentious man is, by token of his preten- 
tiousness, a charlatan always. A man needs only to be 
wise to have learned that no man in the world monopo- 
lizes its wisdom, and that there is no man living who 
cannot teach him something. Human faculty and 
human life are hardly sufficient for learning one thing 
thoroughly. Each man pursues his specialty, learning 
something of it while he lives ; and though he may 
gather much in general touching the specialties of others, 
he gets little knowledge of detail out of his own work. 

Noel Jones ought to have seen enough of the world to 
know that it is full of larger men than he is, or can ever 
hope to be. He ought to know enough of these men 



148 Concerning the Jones Family. 

by this time, to understand that no pretension of his 
can raise him to their altitude, or bring him into com- 
munion with them. The true position for him and for 
me, and for everybody — wise or simple — is that of a 
learner. Many years ago, as a young physician was 
standing by the bedside of a sick little child, in the 
dirty hovel of one who was very poor, he was asked by 
a coarse -looking Irish woman who had come in to do a 
neighborly office, and was standing at the opposite side 
of the bed, whether he thought the patient that lay 
gasping between them would live. He replied that he 
did not think that he could live until the next morning. 
There was a shrewd twinkle in her black eyes, and 
a positive tone in her voice as she expressed an oppo- 
site opinion, and, at the same time gave her reasons for 
it. He went away and thought about it ; and the more 
he thought, the more he became convinced that this ig- 
norant Irish woman had been a better student of disease 
than he had, and that her observations of previous cases 
must have been both intimate and extensive. He gave 
to her reasons their scientific significance, and before 
he reached his office he had become prepared to meet 
what he had supposed to be a dying patient a convales- 
cent the next morning. He did find the patient a con- 
valescent, and left him at last with a valuable addition 
to his knowledge of symptoms, beyond what books and 
his own observation had ever taught him. He learned 
a second lesson by this incident quite as valuable to 



Noel Jones. 149 

him, personally, as the first. It was, never to regard as 
valueless the opinions of the ignorant, when they are 
based on observation, until he had given them a fair and 
thorough investigation. 

This ignorant woman had a right to her opinion. She 
had earned it, for she had studied. She may have 
known nothing else particularly worth knowing, but 
this golden bit of wisdom she had won, and the profes- 
sors and teachers of medicine everywhere would have 
honored themselves by humbly learning it of her. 
Every great and wise brain that lives bows to and 
honors the humblest hand that brings it food and in- 
spiration ; but the position which Noel Jones assumes 
is an insult to all the humble life — not to say high life — 
by which he is surrounded. There are one or two 
things — perhaps half a dozen — which he knows better 
than others. Upon these, men come to him for infor- 
mation ; but they know that all others about which he 
pretends to know so much he really knows nothing. 
Mr. Jones should let his neighbors estimate him. They 
recognize him their superior in one or two points only. 
Let him be thankful that there are one or two things 
which he really knows, and which he can offer in ex- 
change for the world of knowledge which the multitudi- 
nous life around him has found and proved. He has 
his specialties and other men have theirs ; and they 
know, and he ought to know and practically to acknowl- 
edge, that all the men he meets have just as much ad van- 



150 Concerning the Jones Family. 

tage over him as he has over them. It is the habit to 
speak sneeringly of the poverty of human knowledge, 
but human knowledge is not poor in the aggregate. It 
is the individual man who knows so little ; mankind 
knows much. If every man could bring to a common 
depository his special discovery, and the results of his 
particular thinking and working, and there were a mind 
large enough to comprehend and systematize the mass, 
with a life sufficiently long for the enterprise, it would 
be found that human knowledge is as great as humanity it- 
self. Those little books of wisdom contained in the minds 
of his humble neighbors are open to him, and he owes 
it to himself and to them to read them with reverence. 

I have said that the prominent characteristic of all 
really great and wise men is teachableness. I may add 
to this that without teachableness there can be no true 
greatness, for greatness consists, not in great powers 
alone, but in the power to appropriate, and in the deed 
of appropriating, the wisdom made ready for it by 
other minds. For a great man, a thousand minds are 
thinking, a thousand hands are working, a thousand 
lives are living ; and the result of all this thinking and 
working and living come to him and pass into his life, 
contributing to his growth and feeding his power. The 
canal that crosses an empire, and feeds the roots of a 
score of springing cities, and gives passage to the bread 
of a continent, and swells the revenues of a state, has its 
unseen and unacknowledged feeders, that collect its 



Noel Jones. 151 

waters among the mountains, and pour them into its 
trailing volume, and keep it always full. A great man 
lays every mind with which he comes into contact under 
tribute. Great listeners are such men — absorbent of 
every drop of common sense and even the faintest spray 
of human experience. Unerring ears have they, to dis- 
tinguish between the true and the false in the coins that 
are tossed upon their counter. Finding a man who has 
successfully pursued some specialty in knowledge or art, 
they suck his mind as they would suck an orange, throw- 
ing away cells and seeds, and drinking the juice for nu- 
triment and refreshment. Noel Jones does not see that 
it is not the policy of such men as these to be preten- 
tious. They could not afford it, even were they dis- 
posed to be. 

The man who takes the position of Noel Jones must 
necessarily go through life at a disadvantage. His pol- 
icy drives men from him. Pretentiousness is always 
and everywhere an insult to society. He repels the 
knowledge that naturally flows to one who pretends to 
nothing. Nobody goes to him with a suggestion, be- 
cause his attitude repels suggestions. He assumes to 
possess all the knowledge that he needs. All that he 
learns outside of the specialty which absorbs the most 
of his active power, he is obliged to learn by book, or 
by some trick of indirection. He thinks that he can 
only appear to be wise by assuming to be wise, and it 
is possible that he is right. It is possible that he im- 



152 Concerning the Jones Family. 

poses upon a few who would otherwise hold him for a 
very common sort of person ; but all the reputation for 
wisdom he may secure, can never compensate for what 
he loses by cutting off these voluntary supplies. Water 
flows naturally into the humble, open spaces ; it never 
seeks the mountains, except to run around them. Self- 
love, self-conceit, pride of opinion — all these are bar- 
riers to knowledge and barriers to success. During his 
brief life he has suffered from many grave mistakes, 
which, had he been a teachable man, might easily have 
been avoided. His position repelled all information vol- 
untarily offered, and his pride forbade him to .seek for it 
at the only available source. He has blundered through 
experiments whose results could have been given him 
by a dozen of his neighbors, who took a secret satisfac- 
tion in witnessing his expensive failures. He is the wise 
man only who, holding himself unselfishly tributary to 
the lives of others, lays hold of and appropriates the 
wisdom won by the life around him. It should be in 
life as it is in science : if I read the record of a series 
of experiments by which a certain scientific result is 
arrived at, I do not feel myself humbled by the discov- 
ery, nor humbled by using the discovery for my own 
advantage. I contribute freely of my own work, I ap- 
propriate freely the results of the work of others — as a 
member of the great commonwealth of life. It is a noble 
thing to teach ; it is a blessed thing to learn. 

I have told Mr. Jones that there are probably one or 



Noel Jones. 153 

two things about which he knows more than others, and 
touching which his opinions are more valuable than 
those of others. These things his talents have given 
him special power to learn, and circumstances have 
conspired to give him sufficient opportunity. There are 
ten thousand things on which he assumes to have an 
opinion which he can never have a valuable opinion 
upon. He has not those peculiar gifts which will enable 
him to acquire experimental knowledge of them. He 
pretends to know something of finance, for instance, 
but it is not possible for him to comprehend finance. 
No matter how much he may run against the business 
world — the whole of his financial wisdom will consist of 
familiarity with common business forms, and the grasp 
of the general fact that if a man spends more than he 
earns he loses money, while if he earns more than he 
spends he is making it. He pretends to possess good 
literary judgment and taste, but he may study from this 
time until doomsday, and he will never, working by 
himself, win either. A life of study with relation to 
some arts will not win for him what the instincts of 
some men will teach them in a moment. He has his 
special knowledge : — talent and opportunity have given 
it to him. There is an indefinitely large range of 
life in which he can never discover anything that 
will be of the slightest value to him or to others. 
There is an infinitely large range of life through 
which he must be led by other minds, or he will never 
■ 7* 



154 Concerning the Jones Family. 

explore them at all. The bird-fancier with whom I 
walk in the fields is a humble person. I may talk of 
literature, or art, or science, or politics, and he will 
show no sign of interest or intelligence ; but if I talk of 
birds he becomes my teacher — nay, for the time being, 
my king. The air around him is full of creatures whose 
habits and characteristics he knows. He can pour out 
to me a tide of beautiful knowledge, for the acquirement 
of which nature has given him the needed eyes, and 
ears, and apprehensions. He knows the note of every 
bird, the nest of every bird, the plumage of every bird. 
He has possessed himself of their secrets, so that, imita- 
ting their language, and taking the advantage over them 
which reason gives him, he can entrap them. No un- 
common bird, be it never so small, can invade his 
neighborhood without his detecting it ; and he marks 
the retirement of a family from the region that they 
have frequented, as if they belonged to his own species, 
and had advertised their departure. Now, this man's 
knowledge may be humble, but it is genuine ; and it is 
knowledge which, without his help, no one of us could 
have acquired. Mr. Noel Jones, for instance, would 
never have thought of studying birds any more than he 
would have thought of studying the insects that slide up 
and down the sunbeams before his door. 

Knowledge is a very precious possession, and always 
dignifies its possessor. The theorists of all ages have 
filled the world with words, and the pulpit, and the li- 



Noel Jones. 155 

brary, and the school are thronged with words that rep- 
resent more or less of the material and the spiritual 
worlds ; but knowledge does not come from the pulpit, 
or the library, or the school. To know a thing is to live 
a thing — is to come into personal contact and acquaint- 
ance with a thing through the' use of powers adapted to 
win acquaintance by contact. I have seen grave doc- 
tors, and literary men, and clergymen, and shrewd busi- 
ness men listen for hours to the talk of a man who knew 
nothing but the habits of a horse, and the means of 
making that animal the kind and healthy servant of 
man ; and, although he could not construct a sentence 
of English elegantly, they listened as intently as if he 
were reciting the choicest poem in the language with 
the unction of a Kemble, forgetful alike of his provincial 
pronunciation and his incorrect English. These men 
were learners. They had found a man who knew some- 
thing. He had been studying the horse all his life for 
them — studying the horse in the stable ; and they were 
drinking in that which they felt to be positive knowledge. 
It was worth more than all the books on that subject 
they had ever read, and worth more than all their ob- 
servation, because they had not the proper powers for 
studying the horse by contact. It is thus that every 
man is studying something for every other man — gaining 
absolute knowledge by contact with special departments 
of material existence, or by demonstrating spiritual 
truth in personal experience. 



156 Concerning the Jones Family. 

If Noel Jones really imagines that he knows so much 
that he does not need to seek advice or ask for knowl- 
edge, even at the hands of the humblest man with whom 
he is thrown into relation, he must change his opinion 
and his policy. He really knows very little, and he can 
obtain no valuable addition to his positive knowledge 
without laying those under tribute whose knowledge has 
been won as his has been won. Or if he imagines that 
he has powers adapted to discovery and demonstration 
in all the varied fields of knowledge, he must relieve 
himself of that mistake. He has not even the powers 
necessary to make a bird-catcher or a horse-tamer ; and 
when he fancies that he could be a speaker of Congress, 
or a writer for the press, or a preacher, or a Secretary 
of the Treasury, if he only had the opportunity for the 
development or the trial of his powers, he is simply per- 
mitting his self-conceit to befool him. Let him be con- 
tent with his specialty, and bear me witness that even 
the bird-fancier and the horse-tamer have dignity and 
honor which he has hardly won in the high field in which 
Providence has placed him, artd to which his powers are 
especially adapted. Let him conquer his specialty, and 
take gratefully from other hands the knowledge and wis- 
dom which he has neither the time nor the power to 
acquire. 

No, Mr. Noel Jones does not know pretty much every- 
thing. Indeed he knows but a very few things thor- 
oughly, and he would now know a great deal more than 



Noel Jones. 157 

he does if he had never pretended to know anything. 
All sensible people measure him. .They give him credit 
for being an ordinarily acute and wise man — the greatest 
drawback on his reputation being his assumption of 
knowledge that he does not possess, while the only bar 
to his popularity resides in his unwillingness to give to 
men and women the place and consideration to which 
their specialties of talent and knowledge entitle them. 



RUFUS CHOATE JONES, 

LAWYER. 

CONCERNING THE DUTIES AND DANGERS OF HIS 

PROFESSION. 

MR. JONES has recently commenced the practice of 
a profession of which I possess no intimate knowl- 
edge. I know, generally, that it is a respectable profes- 
sion, which requires in those who successfully pursue it 
the best style of intellectual power, thorough industry, 
and a vast amount of special learning. I know that it is 
a profession which in times of peace attracts to itself the 
most ambitious young men, because it affords the best 
opportunities for rising to positions of influence and 
power. I know also, that while it is prostituted to the 
basest uses — as any profession may be — it fills a want in 
the establishment of justice between man and man, and 
occupies a legitimate and an important place in society. 
I can very honestly congratulate him on his connection 
with his profession and his prospects in it. Will he 
kindly read what an outsider has to say of its dangers 
and duties ? 



Rufus Choate Jones. 159 

The principal — perhaps the only — dangers which lie 
in his way relate to his personal character. I regard 
him as a Christian young man, and I find him in a pro- 
fession which necessarily brings him into contact with 
the meanest and the vilest elements in the community. 
Almost every day of his life he finds himself in commu- 
nication with men whose motives are vile and whose 
characters are base. He is obliged to associate with 
them. He not unfrequently finds his interests and sym- 
pathies engaged in their behalf. Almost the whole edu- 
cation of the court-room — to say nothing of the office — « 
is an education in the ways of sin. It is there that mur- 
der and robbery, and adultery and swindling, and cruelty, 
and all the forms of crime and vice are exposed to 
their minutest details, and, as a lawyer, he is necessarily 
absorbed by these details. There is not a form of vice 
with which he is not bound to become familiar. All the 
meanness, and all the rottenness of human nature and 
human character, and all the modes of their exhibition, 
must come into contact with him and leave their mark. 
How this can be done without the blunting of his sensi- 
bilities I do not know. How this can be done without 
damaging, if not destroying, his moral sense, is beyond 
my comprehension. I have heard very good lawyers 
talk about the most shocking cases in a shockingly pro- 
fessional way, and witnessed their amusement with the 
details of some beastly case that had found its way into 
the court-room. I should be very sorry to think that 



160 Concerning the Jones Family, 

our young lawyer could ever acquire such moral indiffer- 
ence, yet I know that he may, and believe that he will, 
if he does not guard himself particularly against it. 

It seems to me quite impossible that a man should 
have a professional interest in the details of a case of 
crime without losing something of the moral repug- 
nance with which the case would naturally inspire him. 
I suppose that this loss of moral sensibility may not 
necessarily be accompanied by actual depravity, yet it 
is, nevertheless, an evil, for it destroys one of the bar- 
riers to depravity. Any influence which familiarizes the 
mind with sin and crime to such an extent that sin and 
crime cease to fill the soul with horror or disgust, is 
much to be deprecated. If he had a young son or a 
young daughter, he would regard any event which would 
bring their minds into familiarity with crime as a calam- 
ity. It would probably be a greater calamity to them 
than to him, but why it should be different in kind, I 
cannot tell. I think he has only to look around him, 
among his own profession, to find men who have re- 
ceived incurable damage through their professional inti- 
macy with sin. He must know numbers of lawyers who 
take an interest which is anything but professional in 
the details of a case of shame that ought to fill them 
with an abhorrence so deep that they would gladly fly 
from it. 

Again, constant familiarity with the weak and the 
erring side of human nature destroys respect for human 



Rufus Choate Jones. 161 

nature itself. The more Mr. Jones learns of the mem- 
bers of the legal profession, the more he will learn that 
great numbers of them have ceased to respect human 
nature. This seems to me to be one of the greatest 
calamities that can befal any man. I do not wonder at 
this effect at all. There is no class of people in the 
world that see so great cause to hold human nature in 
contempt as the legal. They come into contact with 
men whom the world calls honorable and good, and find 
in them such traits of meanness, and such hypocrisy 
and dishonor, and such readiness to be crippled under 
temptation, and such untruthfulness under the pressure 
of self-interest, that they naturally enough conclude that 
one man is about as bad as another, and that no man is 
to be relied upon where his appetites or his selfish in- 
terests are concerned. I say that I do not wonder at 
this, but it is much to be deprecated ; and I know of no 
way to avoid it, except by free association with good 
men and innocent women and children. When a man 
has lost his respect for human nature, he has lost, ne- 
cessarily, his respect for himself, for whether he wills it 
or not, he goes with his kind. 

But there is another danger still which will assail him, 
more subtle and more damaging than professional in- 
terest in crime, or professional intimacy with the worst 
side of human nature, and this is professional interest in 
criminals themselves. I am sorry to say it, but he will 
find himself the professional defender of men whom 



1 62 Concerning the Jones Family. 

he knows to be the foes of society — of thieves, pick- 
pockets, gamblers, murderers, seducers, swindlers. He 
will find himself either lying or tempted to lie in order 
to shield from justice men who he knows ought to be 
punished. He will find himself arrayed against law and 
order, against the peace of the commonwealth, against 
the purity of society, against morals and religion, in 
the defence of a man whom he knows to be guilty of 
the crime charged against him, and deserving of the 
punishment attached to it by the laws of the land. I 
say "he," because I suppose he will naturally follow in 
the track of the principal members of his profession. 
Every criminal is defended to the utmost by men who 
are zealous in their attempt to prove him innocent, and 
to shield him from punishment. Great professional 
reputations are sometimes acquired by saving from the 
gallows a man who everybody is morally certain ought 
to be hanged. A triumph of crime like this is quoted 
admiringly by the profession, and regarded with com- 
placent triumph by the professional victor. I have 
heard men talk by the hour to prove that to be true 
which they and everybody else knew, in all moral cer- 
tainty, to be false, and to demonstrate the innocence of 
a man whom they knew to be guilty. Indeed this mode 
of proceeding has become a part of the machinery of 
the law, and is recognized as entirely legitimate. We 
hear, occasionally, of cases so bad that the counsel en- 
gaged in the defence throw them up in disgust ; but 



Rufus Choate Jones. 163 

these are very rare, and I doubt whether such a surren- 
der is regarded as a fair thing by the profession. 

Now I ask him, before professional usage has had 
time to warp his common sense, what must be the effect 
upon the mind of an advocate, of throwing the entire 
sum of his personal power into the defence of a man 
who, he has good reason to believe, is a foe to law and 
order, and justly deserving of punishment for a breach 
of both ? What must be the effect of identifying his 
own personal and professional reputation with the suc- 
cess of a criminal, in his attempt to shield himself from 
justice ? What must be the effect upon his mind of a 
triumph over the law for himself, and for him who has 
trampled it under his feet ? I know that there is a spe- 
cious style of argument in use in his profession which 
takes the decision of a case out of the hands of a crim- 
inal's professional defender, and gives it to the jury 
before which he is to be tried. The lawyers will say 
that an advocate has no right to decide on the guilt of a 
man on trial — that his work is to defend ; and that 
twelve men, whose business under the law it is, will 
make the decision. This is strictly professional talk— 
the talk of men who make a distinction between law and 
justice — the talk of men who stand by that which is 
simply legal, and let justice and right take care of 
themselves. . These men would say that if they were en- 
gaged in the defence of a person who they were morally 
certain was guilty of the crime charged upon him, they 



164 Concemi7ig the Jones Family. 

would not be excusable did they not do what they could 
to save him, by a resort to every legal trick and quibble 
of which they might be the masters. This is precisely 
what they do. They personally rejoice in the defeat of 
justice. Whenever justice is defeated, and right denied 
or destroyed, in " a court of justice," there is always 
present one lawyer to rejoice personally over the fact — a 
lawyer whose sympathies and success are identified with 
the triumph of the wrongdoer. 

I remember, when a lad, witnessing an interview be- 
tween a couple of young lawyers, — each of whom has 
come to great personal and political honor since then, — 
which to my unsophisticated moral sense, was quite 
shocking. One had been attending a term of court in an 
adjoining county, for the management of an important 
case in which both were interested. The returning 
lawyer greeted his associate with a triumphant flourish 
of his riding stick, and exclaimed: "We've beaten 
them ! we've beaten them ! " Thereupon they gleefully 
talked the matter over. It seemed very strange to me 
that they could rejoice at having "beaten them," with- 
out the slightest reference to the matter of justice and 
right. If the man had been engaged in a personal fight 
or a horse-race, and had come off the winner, he would 
have expressed his triumph in the same way, and with 
just as little reference to the moral aspects and relations 
of the case. This was a professional triumph, and it 
did not matter, apparently, whether justice had shared 



Rufus Choate Jones. 165 

the victory with him or had been vanquished with his 
opponents in the suit. This professional indifference 
to justice and to right, acquired by the identification of 
his own personal success with the safety and success of 
those whom he knows, or believes, to be criminals, is 
what I warn our young lawyer against. I tell him that 
this cannot be indulged in without injury to him, and 
were it not an ungrateful and offensive task, I could re- 
fer him to illustrious instances of legal depravity, in- 
duced by earnest defence of the wrong. I could point 
him to eminent lawyers, with whom lying is as easy as 
breathing — men who do not scruple to misrepresent, 
misconstrue, prevaricate, cheat, resort to all mean and 
unworthy subterfuges, suppress, make use of all availa- 
ble means to carry a point against law and good society 
and pure morals, in favor of ruffians who deserve noth- 
ing better than the halter or the prison. A lawyer has 
only to do this thing to a sufficient extent with sufficient 
earnestness, to lose both his sense of and respect for 
the right, and to become morally worthless. 

I suppose that Mr. Rufus Choate Jones will tell me 
that I am a dreamer, and that I am suggesting some- 
thing that is entirely impracticable, when I advise him 
never to permit himself to be professionally arrayed 
against justice. His seniors in the profession will smile 
contemptuously at my suggestions, I know, and I will 
not blame them, for I know how fatally they have been 
warped by their practice. I take the broad ground that 



1 66 Concerning the Jones Family. 

no man, whatever may be his profession, has a moral 
right to defeat, or to strive by all the means at his com- 
mand to defeat, the ends of justice in the community in 
which he lives, and that no man can conscientiously 
identify himself with the wrong, and fight earnestly for 
its triumph without inflicting incalculable damage upon 
his own moral sense and moral character. I do not be- 
lieve that he — a professional man — has a moral right to 
do in a court of justice what I, not a professional man, 
have no moral right to do. I do not believe that he has 
a moral right to stand up before a jury, and try to mis- 
lead it by tricks of language, by quibbles of law, by 
springing of false issues, by engaging their sympathies 
at the expense of their reason, and I know that it is a 
moral impossibility for him to do it without damage to 
himself. Mark my words : I do not advise him to leave 
a client while he has a reasonable doubt of his guilt, or 
a cause where he has a reasonable doubt of its injustice ; 
but I say without hesitation that when he becomes con- 
vinced that he can go no further in the professional 
advocacy of a man or a cause, without arraying himself 
against right, against justice, against the well-being of 
society, he is bound, in duty to God, the state, and 
himself, to abandon that man or cause ; and all the pro- 
fessional sophistry which he and his professional breth- 
ren can muster can never convince me to the contrary. 

The fact that the money of thieves and scoundrels will 
buy the best legal service to be had is notorious, and it 



Rufus Choate Jones. i6j 

is but a short time ago that it appeared in evidence, in 
a court of justice, that a certain crime was committed 
by a man who, calculating his chances for detection, re- 
lied upon a certain lawyer to " get him off." Was that 
lawyer practically a friend or a foe to society ? Had he 
a right professionally, or in any way, so to conduct him- 
self as to encourage the commission of crime ? 

But I leave this point for one closely related to it. 
The whole tendency of the legal profession, as it seems 
to me, is a substitution of a human for a divine rule of 
action. I think that a lawyer naturally comes to view 
every action and every man from a legal standpoint. 
All his practical dealings with men are on a legal basis. 
If there be a hole in the law, large enough to let through 
his criminal client, the lawyer will pull him through. A 
flaw in an indictment will spoil a case legally, while 
morally and rationally it is not touched at all. The 
lawyer feels justified to do anything that is legal, to 
favor his client or his cause. His conscience has come 
to identify that which is legal with that which is right. 
The law of the Lord is perfect ; the law of man is im- 
perfect ; and the lawyer's constant association with the 
latter naturally crowds the other out of sight. He meas- 
ures the actions of men by that prescriptive red tape of 
his, and the standard of right within his own soul is de- 
graded. 

Litigation is one of the evils of the world, and is vol- 
untarily pursued more to secure personal will than 



1 68 Co7tceming the Jones Family. 

sound justice. There are many cases of doubt in which 
a suit at law is entirely justifiable, not to say desirable ; 
but our friend is already old enough to know that two- 
thirds of the civil cases tried would never find their way 
into court if simple justice were all that the litigants 
were after. Selfish interest, personal greed, pride of 
purpose, wilfulness and waywardness — these are the mo- 
tives and elements of litigation everywhere. Now it is 
the misfortune of the legal profession, that its revenue 
is very largely dependent upon the selfishness and stub- 
bornness of men. It is apparently for the personal in- 
terest of the lawyer to foster a litigious spirit in the 
community, and to nurse every cause of difference be- 
tween men. That this is done by the more disreputable 
of his profession, I presume he will admit; andT am 
sure that he will not deny that the better class of law- 
yers do not discourage litigation as much as they might. 
Here is a duty which I trust our young friend will not 
avoid. If he can prevent a lawsuit between citizens, in 
which no important end of justice is involved, or settle a 
difference which is more a question of personal will than 
of right, then, as a Christian man and a good citizen, 
he is bound to interfere at whatever personal sacrifice. 
If I were to foster a legal quarrel between neighbors, 
which my advice would prevent, he would call me a bad 
neighbor and a bad citizen. The fact that it is for his 
professional interest that neighbors quarrel, does not re- 
lieve him from the same opprobrium for the same mean 



Rufus C ho ate Jones. 169 

offence. There is not a man in the world so well situ- 
ated for promoting the ends of peace between citizens as 
the lawyer, and if he does not avail himself of his oppor- 
tunities, then he fails in the offices of good citizenship. 

I hesitate to speak of one of the dangers to which he 
is exposed, because it supposes that he can cease to be 
a gentleman ; but he will find that, in the court-room, 
lawyers not unfrequently indulge in practices which, 
while they may be strictly legal, are not gentlemanly. 
I declare to him that I have witnessed more cowardly 
insolence in a court-room than in any other place that 
pretended to be controlled by the laws of decency. I 
have seen men whose years and positions should have 
given them dignity, browbeat and badger and, in every 
way sufferable by a too indulgent court, abuse old, sim- 
ple-hearted men and honest women, whose crime it was to 
be summoned as unwilling witnesses by the party oppo- 
sing them. I am not familiar with bar-rooms or broth- 
els, but I think it would be hard to find in any of them 
such flagrant instances of ill-breeding as are witnessed 
at every term of court in every court-room in the land. 
I do not care how high the lawyer stands who takes ad- 
vantage of his position to abuse the honest witnesses 
which the law places in his hands for examination. He 
is no gentleman — he is a mean and cowardly scoundrel. 
Under the protection of the court, he indulges in prac- 
tices so insulting to honest and blameless men and 

women, that all there is within them of manhood and 
8 



17° Concerning the Jones Family. 

womanhood rises to resent the indignity, yet they are 
powerless, and the unwhipped coward rubs his hands 
over his clever boorishness and brutality. For his own 
sake — nay, for decency's sake, I beg of Rufus Choate 
Jones to be a gentleman in the court-room, and do what 
he can to compel others to be gentlemen. This gratui- 
tous abuse of those who are so unfortunate as to be sum- 
moned as witnesses, by the lawyers into whose hands 
they fall, is the shame and disgrace of his profession. 

Rather a formidable array of dangers he will say, I 
imagine ; and perhaps he will add that it is not a very 
promising display of duties. I grant it, but I seek the 
glory of his profession and the good of himself. The 
profession of the law, when it confines itself to the min- 
istry of justice, is one of the noblest in which a man can 
engage. In that aspect it is worthy of the best minds 
which the country produces ; but the profession of law 
when it is used in the prostitution of justice for hire — 
when it is freely lent, with all the personal resources of 
him who practises it, to aid the notorious criminal to 
escape the punishment due to his crimes, and to thwart 
the adjustment of the right between man and man — is an 
outrageous nuisance. I would have him remain what I 
believe he is now — a Christian lawyer — a man who can 
never forget that the royal right is above the legal letter ; 
that God lives and claims a place in the human soul ; 
and that he refuses to live there side by side with venal 
falsehood. I would have him retain, amid all the temp- 



Rufus Choate Jones. 171 

tations of his profession, his love of justice and of right, 
and his hatred of injustice and wrong. I would have 
him guard himself against confounding that which is 
right with that which is legal, so that the latter shall 
always seem essentially the former. I would have him 
maintain in all places the demeanor of a gentleman. I 
would have him a good citizen and not a promoter of 
litigation. I would have him so pure, and upright, and 
honorable, and peace-loving, that men shall refer their 
differences to him rather than carry them into court. I 
do not wish to appeal to any selfish motives, but my 
opinion is that such a lawyer as I desire him to be, would 
command a premium in all the markets of the world. 



MRS. ROYAL PURPLE JONES. 

CONCERNING HER ABSORBING DEVOTION TO HER 

O WN PERSON. 

I HAVE a great respect for the human body. As a 
piece of vitalized mechanism, it is the most admira- 
ble thing in the world. As the dwelling-place and asso- 
ciate and minister of the human soul — the possessor of 
those exquisite senses through which that soul feeds and 
breathes and receives knowledge and inspiration ; its 
first home ; the vestibule of its immortality — I give it 
honor. It is a thing of dignity — a sacred thing — sacred 
to its possessor, and sacred to those to whom in sacred 
love it may be given. Whenever the soul rises to a true 
appreciation of its own worth, it pays honor to the body 
which bears it. Barbarism wanders in negligent naked- 
ness, but civilization, of whatever type, honors the body 
— covers it from sight — drapes and protects it with refer- 
ence to ideas of comfort and taste. Innocence, like 
that possessed by infancy, may feel no shame without 
drapery, but virtue, a very different thing, grows crim- 
son when uncovered. 



Mrs. Royal Purple Jones. 173 

The human body is a thing of beauty as well as of dig- 
nity. All civilized nations have recognized this fact, and 
all have striven, more or less effectually, to reveal or 
enhance that beauty by dress. It costs almost as much 
to clothe civilization as it does to feed it ; and human 
ingenuity is taxed to its utmost, and all departments of 
nature are laid under tribute to produce the fabrics 
with which civilization enrobes itself. 

This domain of dress is one which fashion has con- 
quered and made peculiarly her own, and it ought to be 
a matter of interest to Mrs. Royal Purple Jones, as I 
doubt not it will be to people generally, to know how far 
that power has sophisticated the idea of personal dignity 
on which dress is based. Up to a certain point of 
beauty of fabric and elaborateness of ornamentation, 
dress can be carried legitimately, and with no violence 
to personal dignity ; but beyond that point there must 
always come a resort to the barbaric idea, which will 
necessarily bring personal degradation. Barbarism, 
without any thought of personal dignity — of bodily 
sacredness — has gratified its vanity and desire for dis- 
tinction by means of marks and gaudy ornaments. It 
has tattooed its skin, hung rings in its nose, worn beads 
on its neck, at its girdle, at its knees, stuck feathers 
in its hair, and daubed paint upon its face. This kind 
of ornamentation — an exhibition of personal vanity — is 
the highest expression of the highest idea which barbar- 
ism has ever entertained concerning the human body. 



174 Concerning the Jones Family. 

This vanity touching the person, that feels gratification 
in ornaments and trappings, has not the slightest natural 
connection with that better idea which finds in graceful 
drapery the refuge and shield of the dignity belonging 
to the living tenement of the living soul. It will be seen, 
therefore, that whenever fashion carries dress to ex- 
tremes, or beyond the point of simply giving the body a 
graceful and becoming covering, it always resorts to 
barbarism to help it out — to partial nakedness, or to 
jewels and precious stones, and trinkets, and ribbons 
and laces, and all sorts of ornaments. The fashionable 
belle of Newport and Saratoga enters the assembly room 
or the dining hall only to show that she is sister of the 
South Sea Islander, and that the same idea controls 
them both. 

The curse of Eden seems to have been the subjection 
of the soul to the service of the body. When I reflect 
upon the relative dignity and importance of the soul and 
the body — the immortality of the one and the mortality 
of the other, the heavenly alliances of the one and the 
earthy alliances of the other, the Godlike capacities of 
the one and the brutal appetites of the other — it aston- 
ishes me to realize that the soul's work in this world is, 
in the majority of cases, simply that of procuring food 
and raiment and shelter for the body. It astonishes me 
to realize that under every form of civilization the body 
is the soul's tyrant and leads it by the nose. Naturally, 
the body is uppermost in the general thought. Men 



Mrs. Royal Purple Jones. 175 

must have food and clothing and shelter, or die ; they 
must win all these for their children, or lose them. So, 
under the circumstances of our life, and the usages of 
our civilization, the body is necessarily a constant topic 
of thought. It is not strange, therefore, that the soul 
often forgets that it is master, and loses sight of its own 
dignity and destiny in its habitual devotion to the satis- 
faction of bodily want. 

But this is not the trouble with Mrs. Jones. She is 
not obliged to work for a living. Her money has been 
earned for her by other hands, and her devotion to her 
body is voluntary and not compulsory. Her soul, with 
all its fine capacities and its possibilities of culture and 
goodness, is the willing and devoted slave of the body 
in which " she lives." Her person is the central motive 
of her life. I would like to have her attempt to realize 
to herself how much thought and how much time she 
devotes to the hair that adorns her head. How much 
of both does she give to the little matter of eyebrows ? 
How much to her teeth ? How much to her face as a 
whole, with all the considerations of cuticular texture 
and complexion ? how much to her hands ? how much 
to her arms ? how much to her neck ? how much to her 
feet ? how much to her general configuration ? I would 
like to have her realize that she is in love with her own 
body, and that the keenest delight of her whole life con- 
sists in having that body admired and praised. The 
sense of personal modesty and dignity which flies to 



176 Concerning the Jones Family. 

dress for refuge has really no place in her. I do not 
mean that she is an immodest woman, but that this 
sense of personal sacredness has been overcome by per- 
sonal vanity so far that she dresses rather to show than 
to hide her body — to attract attention to her person 
than to make it the modest and inconspicuous tenement 
of her soul. What is it that absorbs her time ? What 
is it that absorbs her money ? Is it not dress ? Let 
her think of the silks that she buys, and the study that 
she bestows upon their selection and manufacture into 
garments ! Let her think of the hats and the gloves and 
the jewelry, and of the intense and absorbing interest 
which attends their purchase and first wearing ! I think 
she must admit to herself, if not to me, that I have 
found her out — that I know where she has her life ? 

When she attends a party, what is the highest object 
she contemplates ? Does she attend for the "purpose of 
enjoying the conversation of dear friends, or to minister 
to the pleasure of others by her own gifts of conversation, 
or to enjoy the sight of pleasant faces, or to hear music, 
or to engage in dancing or such other amusements as 
may be indulged in ? Is it for all or for any of these 
that she attends ? Is it not rather to show her dress, 
and to display, for the admiration of the gentlemen and 
the envy of the ladies like herself, her richly draped and 
elaborately ornamented person? Would she have a 
single motive to attend a party if she were obliged to 
dress inconspicuously and plainly ? Is it not true that 



Mrs. Royal Purple Jones. 17 7 

her one absorbing thought with relation to such attend- 
ance concerns the dressing and adornment of her per- 
son ? And when she returns from an assemblage, does 
she think of anything except the simple questions as to 
how she looked, and how she compared or contrasted 
with certain other women who, unfortunately, are as 
much devoted to their persons as she is to hers ? When 
she walks in the streets, what is she thinking about ? Is 
she thinking of what she sees in the shop- windows, or 
what the shop-windows see on her ? Is she not conscious 
that many eyes are turned upon her to see what she 
has taken great pains to make attractive to all eyes ? 
When she dresses for church, and when she enters the 
sacred edifice, what thought is uppermost in her mind? 
Is it a thought which becomes the holy place, or is it 
still of the drapery and ornaments with which she has 
hung her person ? Is she not filled everywhere — under 
all circumstances — with these same vanities ? Do they 
not haunt and hold her constantly ? 

She need not blush and hang her head because she 
finds that I know her better than she has hitherto 
known herself, for she has plenty of company. The 
whole world of fashionable women is controlled by the 
same thoughts and ideas that control her — a world of 
women who, in the pursuit of personal adornment, have 
adopted the ideas of barbarism, and have personally 
descended toward barbarism through such adoption. 

She, and all of her associates, have, in their devotion to 
8* 



178 Concerning the Jones Family. 

the dressing and bedizening of their persons, degraded 
themselves pitifully. The whole number of female 
fashionable souls are but slaves to the fading bodies in 
which they live. When I look in upon a fashionable 
watering-place, and see how dress and personal adorn- 
ment absolutely monopolize the time and thoughts of the 
fashionable women assembled there — when I witness the 
rivalry among them — the attempts to outshine each 
other in diamonds and all the tributaries to costly dress 
— when I see their jealousies, and hear their ill-natured 
criticisms of each other, and then realize that these 
women are mothers and those of whom mothers will be 
made, I have opened to me a gulf of barbarous selfish- 
ness — a scene of gilded meanness and misery — from 
which I shrink back heart-sick and disgusted. Good 
Heaven ! what are these women ? Are they all body 
and no soul ? Is it decent business for a decent soul to 
be constantly engaged — absorbingly occupied — in orna- 
menting and showing off, for the gratification of personal 
vanity, the body it inhabits ? Do they realize how low 
they are fallen ? Do they realize that they are come to 
the small and indecent business of getting up their per- 
sons to be looked at, admired, praised, — that the most 
grateful satisfactions of their lives are found in this busi- 
ness, and that the business itself is but a single moral 
remove from prostitution ? 

If I have succeeded in picturing them to themselves, 
perhaps they will be prepared to follow me in a contem- 



Mrs. Royal Purple Jones. 179 

plation of a few of the natural consequences of their in- 
fatuation upon their character and happiness. Are 
there any among these fashionable women who are 
making any intellectual progress ? The thing is impos- 
sible. There is nothing more conducive to mental 
growth and development in devotion to the keeping and 
dressing of the person of a woman, than there is in the 
keeping and the grooming and harnessing of a pet horse. 
Let us look at a man who devotes himself to a horse. 
He may be a very pleasant fellow, and ordinarily intelli- 
gent, but if he is enamored of his animal, and gives 
himself up to his care and exhibition, becoming what is 
known as a "horse man," that ends his intellectual de- 
velopment. When horse gets highest in a man's mind, 
culture ceases. Now, it will make no difference, practi- 
cally, to these women whether they are devoted to the 
person of a horse, or the person of a pet dog, or to their 
own persons. The mind that engages in no higher 
business, or that finds its highest delight in no higher 
pursuit than that of grooming and displaying a beautiful 
body, can make no progress in a nobler life. Practi- 
cally, she will find this the case everywhere. Fashion- 
able people do not grow at all. They move along in the 
same old ruts, prate of the same old vanities, go the 
same old rounds of frivolity, and only become less 
sprightly and agreeable as the years pass by. Just what 
I see in these people I see in Mrs. Royal Purple Jones. 
There is another very sad result which comes natu- 



180 Concerning the Jones Family. 

rally from supreme devotion to one's person. It makes 
one supremely selfish. Mrs. Jones has permitted her 
personal vanity to control her so long that she really 
can see nothing in the universe but herself. It seems 
proper and right that everybody should serve her. Any 
labor that would soil or enlarge her small, white hands — 
any toil that would tax the powers of her petted body — 
any service for others that would draw her away from 
service to her own person — is shunned. Her mother, 
her sisters, her friends, are all laid under tribute to her, 
and her petulance under denial has made them her 
slaves. Absorbed by these thoughts of herself, devoted 
to nothing but herself, making room for no plans which 
do not relate to herself, she has come to regard herself 
as the world's pivotal centre. It does not occur to her 
at all that the kind people around her can have any in- 
terests or plans of their own to look after. All the fish 
must come to her net, or she is unhappy ; and if those 
around her are. not made unhappy, it is not because she 
does not try to make them so. Sometimes she acts like 
a miserable, spoiled baby, and then, under the spur of 
jealousy, she acts like an infuriated brute. The ten- 
dency to this shameful selfishness is natural and irresis- 
tible in all who devote themselves, as she has done, to 
the care and exhibition of their persons. Others may 
cover it from sight more than she does, by a more cun- 
ning art, but it is there. It cannot be otherwise, and I 
cannot conceive of a type of selfishness more nearly 



Mrs. Royal Purple Jones. 181 

perfect than that which the character of almost any- 
fashionable woman illustrates. 

There is still another result which naturally flows from 
supreme devotion to the person, viz., vulgarity. I look 
anywhere in God's world for genuine refinement and 
lady-like instincts and manners rather than to what is 
called fashionable society. True refinement and gentle 
manners can never find their home in any society in 
which selfishness reigns. True refinement has brains ; 
true refinement has a heart. True refinement always 
makes room in the world for others. True refinement 
has consideration for others. True refinement does not 
find its satisfactions in the display and adornment of the 
body. True refinement refuses to be governed by fash- 
ion, having within itself a higher and purer law. True 
refinement shrinks from conspicuity and show. True 
refinement engages in no unworthy and unwomanly 
rivalry. Mrs. Jones knows that the coarsest words that 
we ever hear from the lips of women — the harshest, the 
meanest, worst things, the lowest expressions — we hear 
from the lips of those of her own set. Yet mark the 
impudent hypocrisy of the thing ! She and her set as- 
sume to be the leaders of society — the ton — the pattern 
women of the nation — so far refined that all other women 
are counted vulgar. Why, how can she or they help 
becoming vulgar when they have been nothing for years 
but their own grooms ? How can she or they help be- 
coming low when they have thought of nothing for years 



1 82 Concerning the Jones Family. 

but their own persons ? They are vulgar. All their 
pursuits are vulgar. Their rivals and associates are vul- 
gar, and their ambitions are as vulgar as those of the 
horse -jockey. 

I would not be misunderstood. I admire a well- 
dressed woman. I admire a beautiful woman, and I 
thoroughly approve all legitimate efforts to render the 
person both of man and woman agreeable. Men and 
women owe it to their own dignity to drape their per- 
sons becomingly and well, and they can do this without 
acquiring an absorbing passion for dress, or giving any 
more than the necessary amount of thought and time to 
it. The fact is that a woman who is what a woman 
should be has no need of elaborate personal ornament 
to make her attractive. A pure, true heart, a self- 
forgetfulness of spirit, an innocent delight in innocent 
society, a wish and an effort to please, ready ministry to 
the wants of others, graceful accomplishments willingly 
used, sprightliness and intelligence — these are passports 
to personal power. Relying upon these, there is no 
woman whose person is simply and becomingly dressed 
who is not well dressed. With any or all of these, the 
person becomes pleasing. 

As I write there comes to my memory the person of a 
woman whom everybody loved and admired — the most 
thoroughly popular woman I ever knew. She was wel- 
comed alike in fashionable and refined society, and be- 
haved herself alike in both. She was not beautiful, but 



Mrs. Royal Purple Jones. 183 

she was charming. She never ornamented her person, 
but she was always well dressed. A simple, well-fitted 
gown, and hair tastefully disposed, were all one could 
see of any effort to make her person pleasing, and these 
seemed to be forgotten, and, I believe, were forgotten, 
the moment she entered society. When friends were 
around her she had no thought but of them — no desire 
but to give and receive pleasure. If she was asked to 
sing, she sang, and, if it ministered to the pleasure of 
others, she sang patiently, even to weariness. She was 
as intelligent and stimulating in sober conversation as 
she was playful in spirit ; and though she loved general 
society and mingled freely in it, not a breath of slander 
ever sullied her name, and not an emotion was ever ex- 
cited by her that did not do her honor. Every man ad- 
mired and honored her, and every woman — a much 
greater marvel — spoke in her praise. Many a belle, 
dressed at the height of fashion, entered her presence 
only to become insignificant. Diamonds were forgotten, 
and splendid dress was unmentioned, while her sweet 
presence, her self-forgetful devotion to the pleasure of 
others, and her gentle manners, were recalled and dwelt 
upon with unalloyed delight. 

I have been painting from life. I have painted Mrs. 
Jones from life, and I have painted, this friend from life 
— a friend so modest and so unconscious of her charms 
that she would weep with her sense of unworthiness if 
she were told that I had attempted to paint her. How 



1 84 Concerning the Jones Family. 

does the contrast strike Mrs. Jones ? Does she not see 
that she is a slave, and that this friend is a free woman? 
Does she not see that the latter has entered into the 
eternal realities of things, and that she is engrossed in 
ephemeral nothingnesses ? Does she not see that this 
friend is a refined woman, and that she is a coarse one ? 
Does she not see that the unselfish devotion of this 
friend to the happiness of others is beautiful, that her 
unconsciousness of her charms is beautiful, that her sim- 
plicity is beautiful, and that her own selfishness and de- 
votion to dress, and her jealousy and her rivalries, are all 
vulgar, and ugly, and hateful ? 

It is complained of by many of her sex that men 
regard woman as only a plaything — a creature to be 
humored and petted and controlled, and indulged in, as 
a troublesome luxury. It is complained of that woman 
does not have her place as man's equal — as his friend, 
companion, and partner. Are men entirely to be 
blamed for this opinion, to the limited extent in which it 
is held ? Suppose men were to take Mrs. Jones and 
such as are like her as the subject of their study : what 
would be their conclusions ? Suppose they were thor- 
oughly to comprehend her devotion to her own person, 
— to realize the absolute absorption of all her energies 
and all her time by the frivolous and mean objects that 
enthrall her — what would be the decision ? What does 
Mrs. Jones' husband think about it? I hope she will 
excuse me for mentioning him. I am aware that he oc- 



Mrs. Royal Purple Jones. 185 

cupies a very small share of her attention ; but, really, 
the man who finds her in money has a right to an opin- 
ion upon this point. She does not care what his opinion 
is ? I thought so. She has ceased to love him, and he 
has ceased to oppose her. It is impossible for her hus- 
band to love her. It is impossible for any man either 
to love or to honor a woman so selfish as she is ; and 
her sex may blame her and those who are like her for 
all the contempt which a certain class of men feel for 
women. She degrades herself to the position of a showy 
creature, good for nothing but to spend money. She 
teaches men contempt for her sex, and it is only the 
modest and intelligent women whom she despises that 
redeem it to admiration and love. 



MISS FELICIA HEMANS JONES. 

CONCERNING HER STRONG DESIRE TO BECOME 
AN A UTHOR. 

9 

1H0PE Miss Jones will permit me to reply publicly 
to the private letter in which she has informed me 
of her strong desire to engage in literary labor, as a 
form of self-expression which embraces all her ambition 
and all her wish to do good. Had her letter been the 
first of the kind that had reached my hand, I should 
not have ventured to treat her case publicly ; I have re- 
ceived a hundred such, and many of these came to me 
so reluctantly — after such a struggle with inclination — 
that I am convinced that she is only one of a class 
which numbers its thousands in every part of the coun- 
try. Indeed, the world is full of women whose unsatis- 
fied lives and whose overflowing natures fill them with 
suggestions of ideal good, to be won in some field of 
art. If these women could use the pencil or the chisel, 
many of them would be artists, or would try to be 
artists ; but the pen is the only instrument of expres- 
sion with which their fingers are familiar, and they come 



Miss Felicia Hemans Jones. 187 

to regard it as their only resort. I have a deep sym- 
pathy with this desire to write, and I am sure that Miss 
Jones will receive what I have to say of her as the words 
of a friend. 

She has a strong desire to write, she tells me. Well, 
this power to write may be associated with the power to 
succeed as a writer, or it may not. The desire to write 
is not even prima facie evidence of fitness for writing. 
The desire, as I have already intimated to her, is quite 
universal. One of the strangest anomalies of human 
nature is exhibited in the general desire to do those 
things which are the most difficult to do. A little man 
desires to do the work of a large man, and a large man 
desires to be thought nimble. A man of slender limb 
desires to be an athlete. It is very common for men to 
have a strong desire to sing or to play upon a musical 
instrument who could not sing or play with a century's 
practice, because they have neither voice nor ear. I 
suppose that nine out of every ten of the students of our 
colleges have a strong desire to become orators, and 
they know how much, or how little, the desire amounts 
to. Most probably the student who has the least desire 
to be an orator of any one in his class is the one who is 
the most certain to become one ; and perhaps he will 
readily see that he who is conscious of possessing the 
orator's native power has least occasion to desire it. 
Of the great multitude who write, she knows that only a 
few succeed. Nine out of every ten fail — perhaps even 



1 88 Concerning the Jones Family. 

a larger portion than this. A very few of these fail, 
doubtless, through no real fault of their own, but 
through unfavorable circumstances ; while the most of 
them find, to their mortification and their cost, that their 
desire to write misled them entirely with regard to the 
work which nature intended them to do. So she sees 
that I do not think much of desire as a guide to one's 
work in the world. Indeed, I think it is the most unre- 
liable index ever consulted. 

I think I understand the process through which the 
mind of Miss Jones is constantly passing. She takes up 
a book from the pen of a favorite author, and she is re- 
freshed and nourished and inspired by it. She is ex- 
alted by this communion with a highly vitalized and 
fruitful mind, and feels herself longing for action and 
expression of some kind. It is the most natural thing in 
the world for her to desire, before everything else, to be 
a writer. She admires the author who has inspired her. 
She imagines that the mind that has within it the power 
to work such marvels upon her must be a supremely 
happy mind. His position of power seems very enviable 
to her — if not enviable, very desirable. The result of 
his efforts upon her are so good and so wonderful that it 
seems to her that it must be a glorious thing to work it. 
She longs to do for others what he has done for her. 
She longs to be regarded with love and admiration as an 
inspirer. This is the same feeling that is excited in a 
sensitive mind by public speakers. Thousands of very 



Miss Felicia Hemans Jones. 189 

commonplace men are excited, by oratorical efforts in 
the pulpit and on the platform, to a strong desire to be- 
come public speakers. The desire to be preachers, or 
orators, or lecturers, or public debaters, is always ex- 
cited in some minds by listening to the different varie- 
ties of public speaking, yet the most of these need only 
try once to become convinced that desire is a very poor 
index to power. 

The desire to write is intimately connected with — per- 
haps it is one of the expressions of — the longing natural 
to every heart to be recognized. The heart that loves 
men, and is conscious of the wish and the power to bless 
them, longs for the recognition of men. All of us who 
are good for anything have this longing. We long for 
the recognition of our real value ; we long for a place in 
the respect and love of those around us. It is not un- 
frequently true that those whose affections have been 
unsatisfied at home — whose plans of domestic life have 
miscarried — or who are immediately surrounded by 
those who will not, or who cannot, sympathize with 
them — who are every day associated with those by 
whom they are undervalued — turn to the public for that 
which has been denied them at home. I do not know 
whether I hit Miss Jones' case in these remarks or not, 
but I should think it strange if I did not. It is not com- 
mon for a woman who is satisfied in her affections, who 
is surrounded by sympathetic friends, and who holds a 
good position securely, to care for, or even to think 



190 Concerning the Jones Family. 

of recognition beyond. On the other hand, it is very 
common for women whose domestic surroundings and 
society are not satisfying, to look to other fields for rec- 
ognition, and to none so commonly as to that of au- 
thorship. 

In her letter to me she speaks of her wish to do good 
by writing. I do not question the sincerity of the wish. 
It may flow from the benevolence of her nature, devel- 
oped by Christian culture, or it may have been inspired 
by the consciousness of good received from the writings 
of others. But she must remember that one's motives 
may be very good while one's native gifts may be but 
poorly adapted to literary effort. Her motives decide 
nothing as to her power. That she may readily see, by 
looking at the pulpit, filled by men whose motives are 
excellent, while the power of one-half of them has never 
found demonstration, and never will. I have some- 
times thought that there were no preachers in the field 
who more uniformly have the noblest motives and the 
most charming Christian spirit than those who have not 
the slightest power in the pulpit. No person should 
write without good motives, but good motives alone 
never made a good book. Goodish books are written in 
great numbers by people who write with good motives 
and incompetent brains ; but I suppose she does not 
care to write such books as these. 

I have made these remarks, not to prove to her that 
she is incompetent to write a book, and not for the pur- 



Miss Felicia Hemans Jones. 191 

pose of making her believe that she is incompetent. I 
have made them for the simple purpose of showing her 
that her strong desire to write, even when backed by the 
purest and most benevolent motives, is no evidence that 
she can succeed. The world is full of desire to do good 
and great things, and it is not lacking in worthy motives. 
She is not peculiar in these things. She shares them, to 
a greater extent than she suspects, with her neighbors. 
She would probably be astonished to learn how many 
there are among her immediate friends who have been 
moved by the same desire that moves her, yet she may 
be able to see that not one of them could succeed as a 
writer. There may be one among her friends, too, who 
has not had any desire about the matter, but who has 
written by a sort of natural necessity, without recogni- 
tion or publication. What does she think of such a 
man as Theodore Winthrop, who wrote quite a little 
library of books that could find no publisher until he 
was killed, and that have now made him famous ? Such 
a man writes because it is a necessity of his nature to 
write, and I venture to say that he never sought advice 
on the subject. He certainly was not checked in pro- 
duction because the publishers would not print his 
books, and the public could not read them. Still, it is 
possible that Miss Jones has just the native gifts that 
would command success in authorship, though I wish 
her to feel that the probabilities are against her, and to 
open her eyes to these probabilities. 



1 92 Concerning the Jones Family. 

We will suppose that she has those native gifts which, 
under favorable conditions, would enable her to succeed, 
and we shall have these conditions to look after. The 
first of these is the possession of something of genuine 
value to communicate. Her power of expression may 
be unsurpassed, and her style may be exceedingly at- 
tractive ; but, unless she has something of value to con- 
vey, these will avail her nothing. What has she of 
knowledge or wisdom to give mankind ? How much has 
she thought and felt and lived ? How much more has 
she thought and felt and lived than those for whom she 
is to write ? Does she, in her character and in the gen- 
eral results of her life, stand so far above the mass of 
mind around her, as to be able to inspire it and to lead 
it to higher ground ? This question has a great deal 
more to do with her success in authorship than that 
which relates to the desire to write. Has she knowledge 
which the world has not, and which the world needs ? 
Has her life led her through such paths of experience 
and observation that she feels qualified to lead or direct 
others ? 

Another essential condition to success in authorship is 
time. To write a brief poem, or a clever little essay for 
a magazine or a newspaper, does not require much 
time. She can do this in the intervals of domestic 
labor. It would be quite likely to sweeten labor, and 
give significance to leisure, to have on hand the work of 
embodying in some good or graceful form, some good 



Miss Felicia Hemans Jones. 193 

or graceful thought for other eyes ; but this would be 
playing at authorship. To succeed in a field which 
numbers among its competitors the brightest and the 
best minds of the world — minds which devote all of 
their time to their work — involves the entire devotion of 
one's time to the effort. Success in authorship cannot 
be won without time. The man who gains the ear of 
the world by the labor of ten years may be accounted 
fortunate. It is possible that an author may write a 
book very early in life which will be read, but it will be 
forgotten within a shorter time than he occupied in 
writing it. A book lives by its value — by the amount 
of genuine life, or food for life, which it contains ; and 
it takes time to collect this. Defoe, the author of 
" Robinson Crusoe," was also the author of more than 
two hundred other works, and it is more than likely 
that Miss Jones never heard of any of his books except 
this that I have named. Yet this book was among his 
last. It was written after many years of authorship — 
the only book of all his life that had vitality enough in 
it to survive him. It took nearly sixty years of his life, 
and more than thirty years of authorship, to bring him 
where he could write Robinson Crusoe. Mr. Motley, 
the now celebrated historian, began early as a novelist, 
and his book failed so signally that, when he emerged 
from his obscurity as a historian, nobody remembered 
the novel. Where did Mr. Motley spend the ten years, 
more or less, that divided the issues of the novel and 
9 



194 Concerning the Jones Family. 

the history ? He spent them in his study, at his desk, 
in patient labor, giving to his project the very best 
years of his life. 

Now, will Miss Jones ask herself whether she has 
time to give to a life like this ? Does she realize how 
much of sacrifice it involves ? — sacrifice of health and 
society and domestic pleasures ? Are her plainly indi- 
cated domestic duties such as to permit her to devote 
herself to a life like this ? Is the time that it would 
absorb so entirely at her disposal, through abundance 
of means for her support, that she can afford to run 
the risks of authorship ? This question of time is a 
very important one to a person who is poor. A writer 
may devote one or two years to writing a good book, 
and then look one or two years for a publisher, for the 
best books by new authors have notoriously begged for 
publishers. " Waverley " and "Uncle Tom's Cabin" 
and "Jane Eyre" were all beggars for publishers. She 
would not be apt to have a better fate. But suppose, 
after the usual working and waiting, she were to obtain 
a publisher. Then he waits for the proper time to bring 
out his book. It may be three months ; it may be a 
year. Six months after the day of publication he will 
give her a note for whatever may be due her for copy- 
right, payable in four or six months from date. Does 
she think that this is an exaggeration ? Every author 
knows it is not. It is the simple truth, and many of 
them know that when the day of settlement has come, 



Miss Felicia Hemans Jones. 195 

their copyright amounts to nothing ; or they have found 
that their note, when they were fortunate enough to get 
one, has not been paid at maturity, on account of the 
failure of its maker. A man must be rich and inde- 
pendent, or poor and desperate, to afford to write a first 
book. There are hardly ten persons among the fifty 
millions of America who rely on the writing of books for 
a living, and the most of those have a hard task of it. 
There is but one way in which a person who is depend- 
ent upon his labor for a living can write a book, and 
that is to write it in the intervals of labor, which labor is 
devoted to the simple purpose of getting a living. She 
will readily see that a writer thus engaged is at work 
very disadvantageously. 

Another condition of successful writing is patience. 
A man furnished with all the necessary means of sup- 
port, and impelled to write by the desire which moves 
Miss Jones, and by her wish to do good, will find that, 
after the labor of a few weeks, the desire dies out. The 
impulse to write, born of the inspiration of the books 
which one reads, is very fiery and very fine at the first, 
but it is hard to stretch it over a period of six months 
or a year, through weariness, and headache, and con- 
finement, and doubt as to the result, and disgust with 
the failure to satisfy one's own taste and judgment. 
The man or the woman who writes on after the original 
inspiration has lost its impulse — labors on in the drud- 
gery of detail, in polishing, trimming, rewriting — finds 



ig6 Concerning the Jones Family. 

it at last an irksome task, and is only sustained in it 
by a self-supported determination. A fresh interest will 
sustain labor ; but, when a book has been fully con- 
structed in the mind and realized in the imagination, 
and nothing remains but the labor of writing a limited 
amount from day to day for many months, all of which 
writing must be done before one can get any sympathy 
from others, it takes a will as patient and unyielding as 
that which a besieging army needs before a fortress that 
is to be approached by inches. Does she possess this 
patience, this persistence, this adamantine will which 
will stand, and command, and do, after desire and in- 
spiration are gone, and even the motive of doing good 
has been discouraged ? 

I have thus attempted to show her how easily she may 
be misled as to her abilities by her desires, and what 
the conditions of successful writing must be, admitting 
that her abilities are all that she supposes them to be. 
I have exaggerated nothing, but tried to give her a faith- 
ful survey of the ground, so that if she still feels impelled 
to undertake writing, she may approach her task with a 
good understanding of its difficulties. If I were intent 
on discouraging her — if that were my motive at all — I 
might go farther, and speak of what are supposed to be 
" satisfactions " of authorship. I might tell her that the 
article which so inspired her probably left the author a 
disgusted man. It is more than probable that the books 
which have pleased and strengthened her most are, at 



Miss Felicia Hemans Jones. 197 

this very moment, regarded by the writer as unworthy 
of him, and altogether unworthy of the purpose to which 
they were addressed. I might tell her of the incompe- 
tent criticism, the mean personal attacks, the careless 
condemnations, and, worst of all, the undiscriminating 
praises which are every successful author's lot. But, as 
she does not propose to write to please herself, and is 
actuated by the desire to do good, the effort would be 
irrelevant. It would be very painful to me to feel that I 
had dissuaded any man or woman from a legitimate 
career, or to know that I had turned aside any mind 
from a walk of usefulness ; but I cannot but believe that 
an intelligent survey of the difficulties of authorship, 
and a comprehension of the signs of power to succeed 
usually relied upon, will settle this question forever in 
their minds. It is one of the curses of life to feel that 
we are out of place, and to feel that we might be doing 
something better than that which engages our powers. 
The world is full of the unsatisfied, multitudes of whom, 
I believe, turn their eyes to the field of authorship with 
desire, and with more or less of conviction that there are 
success and satisfaction in it for them. These people 
will never write, but they will always be thinking about 
it ; and they need something to turn them back upon 
their legitimate field for the satisfaction which they seek. 
I hope this paper will have an influence on the mind of 
Miss Jones as well as on theirs. Of this I feel measur- 
ably certain : if she was born for an authoress, she will 



198 Coiicerning the Jones Family. 

find that within her which will set all my wisdom aside, 
and push on. There is a consciousness of power and a 
faith in success which I cannot define, but before which 
I bow ; and if she has these — heaven-imparted — I bid 
her God speed. But I beg her not to mistake a simple 
desire to write, which she shares in common with thou- 
sands, for the divine impulse to which I allude. 



JEHU JONES. 

CONCERNING THE CHARACTER AND TENDENCIES 
OF THE FAST LIFE WHICH HE IS LIVING. 

1HAVE been watching Jehu Jones with painful solici- 
tude for the last five years. He was originally 
what people call a wild boy, with no particular vices, 
but with strong passions and a great overflow of animal 
spirits. He came into manhood with a cigar in his 
mouth and a reputation for " spreeing," in both of 
which he apparently took a proud delight. He abused 
every horse that he had the opportunity of driving, and 
particularly affected a dashing turnout. He liked the 
society of sporting men, and took naturally to their 
ways and to their morals. He cut loose from the influ- 
ence of the Christian friends around him, and broke the 
Sabbath, and frequented the haunts of vice, and en- 
gaged in scenes of dissipation, and laughed at those who 
yielded themselves to the control of conscience. He is 
a good-natured person enough, but he is wicked, and 
while he maintains a place in respectable society, he is 
regarded with fear by the good and with suspicion by 



200 Concerning the Jones Family. 

all. It is understood among the women that he is not 
a pure man, and it is known, by some of them, that he 
has abused the confidence of more than one. All of his 
friends have heard sad reports of his sins when beyond 
their sight, and all regard him as a ruined man. 

I wish to call his attention particularly to this point, 
viz., that the community regard him as a ruined man al- 
ready. He does not imagine this to be the case, at all. 
He has no idea that he is ruined. He is not aware that 
he has the reputation of being ruined. Now I hope he 
will permit me to set him before himself. 

He is not under the control of principle in the slightest 
degree. He has some notions of honor, but they are 
entirely conventional. They would not keep him from 
breaking his pledge to a woman or breaking her heart, 
and I say, therefore, that he has no principle — not even 
the principle of personal honor which he doubtless sup- 
poses he has. There is, thus, nothing to restrain him 
from the most unscrupulous means for securing his 
personal ends, and nothing to stand between him and 
personal gratification of his sensual desires, except the 
law. Now will he not decide for himself how far a man 
in this position is from ruin ? Does he imagine that he 
is, to any extent, under the control of principle ? Does 
principle restrain him from indulgence in strong drink ? 
Does principle withhold him from association with lewd 
women ? Does principle forbid him the use of the pro- 
fane oath or the obscene jest ? He knows it does none 



Jehu Jones. 201 

of these things. Then why does he fancy that he is con- 
trolled by principle ? Why does he fancy that there is 
anything within him to keep him from moral ruin ? If 
he is not ruined to-day, he is pretty certain to be ruined 
very soon, because salvation involves reformation, at 
which he scoffs. 

Let me ask him to look around him and see what 
those have come to who began where he began. There 
goes his neighbor with a blotched and burning face and 
a stuffed skin, whose drink will just as certainly kill him 
as if it were arsenic. He stood once where Jehu Jones 
stands to-day. He did not dream, ten years ago, that 
he was ruined ; but he has taken no new step to bring 
him where he now stands. He only continued to do 
what he was already doing. There was no principle to 
stand between him and destruction. He drank with his 
friends occasionally, then he drank with them habitu- 
ally, then he drank alone to gratify a thirst which drink 
had created, and which will never die while his vitiated 
body lives. Let him look at that other neighbor of his 
with dark red skin and troubled eye, who knows where 
he is going. It is not ten years since he was not even 
suspected of drinking, but it came out that he had 
learned in secret to love hot liquors, and that he had set 
his heart against reform. That man is in the straight 
road to hell, and he knows it, and Jehu Jones is on the 
same road, stops at the wayside resorts and drinks with 
him. Delirium tremens waits for that man and is sure 
9* 



202 Concerning the Jones Family. 

of him. Let Mr. Jones look at that little circle of neigh- 
bors younger than those to whom I have called his 
attention. Does he see how they are changing ? Does 
he not see that they are growing preternaturally heavy, 
and that they are becoming more habitual in their visits 
to the dram-shop and in the indulgence of drink at 
home ? Has he any doubt as to where they will be in 
the course of ten years more ? 

Having looked at these, suppose he goes with me to 
visit certain others who have arrived at the close of their 
journey. There sits one in his doorway — a miserable 
wreck, filled with gouty pains, unable even to taste of 
the liquor which has destroyed him, and loathing the 
food which he has no power to digest. There writhes 
another in torment — in a delirium whose horrors are be- 
yond conception, as they are beyond description. There 
sits another in the sun, from whom the flesh has all fallen 
away — who is left feeble and flaccid and foolish — a 
poor, broken-down, diseased wretch, beyond the reach 
of help. There sinks another in paralysis, a helpless 
mass of bloated flesh. 

What does Mr. Jones think of these men ? Does it 
seem as if that handsome face and those shapely limbs 
of his could ever arrive at such degradation ? He has 
only to keep along the track which he now follows, with 
no fears and no compunction of conscience to pass 
through the various stages of ruin which these men have 
presented to him. There is but one end to a life of 



Jehu Jones. 203 

drink, and that is hell." It matters little whether the 
popular doctrine of future torment be admitted or not 
to make my statement true. A body long abused by 
drink becomes all that we can conceive of as hell. It is 
the dwelling-place of torment — the home of horror. Mr. 
Jones sees these men on their way to ruin. He knows 
just where they are going, and I see he is going on the 
same road, to the same end. Let him tell me whether 
he does not love drink better to-day than he did five 
years ago. Let him tell me whether it does not take 
more drink to satisfy him than it did five years ago. Let 
him tell me whether he does not drink oftener than 
he did even two years ago. Let him tell me whether he 
does not think of it oftener when away from it than he 
did one year ago. Let him tell me whether his con- 
science reproves him at all, and whether, under the ac- 
cumulating evidences of his essential ruin, he has felt the 
smallest alarm as to what may be the result of his indul- 
gence. I see what he does not see — that he has acquired 
an appetite for liquor. He used to drink it only when 
on a frolic ; now he drinks it every day. Now let me tell 
him what observation and experience teach — that he will 
love it more and more as the years pass away, and will 
be less and less inclined to relinquish its use. Why 
should I not speak of him, then, as a ruined man ? 
There is another element that enters into his ruin. He 
has for the last five years, consorted with ruined women. 
When he was younger, evil companions and evil desires 



204 Concerning the Jones Family. 

and curiosity led him into their society. There were 
certain things in that society that disgusted him then. 
To-day he is at home in it. To-day, he is a beast. He 
delights in the company of women who shame the names 
of mother, sister, and wife — of prostitutes who sell for gold 
that which, in God's pure economy, is sacred to love — 
of women whose touch is pollution and whose hold upon 
him is damnation. Oh, Heaven ! When I think of the 
young life around me, that it is permitting its feet to be 
directed into these terrible paths of sin — when I con- 
sider how seductive these paths are to youthful appetite 
and passion — when I remember how opportunity invites 
from ten thousand hiding-places — when I realize that 
there is no vice which so deadens or destroys the moral 
sense as that of licentiousness, I am sick and almost in 
despair. Jehu Jones is old in this vice, but there are 
those around me who are young in it, as he was once — 
boys, whose feet hang upon the verge of a precipice 
more fearful than death — young men — with Christian 
mothers and pure sisters — whose characters are as base 
as their bodies are diseased. Does he shrink from this 
vice, and from the society which it involves ? Is he not 
in love with it — so much in love with it that he does not 
enjoy the society of pure women ? Is he not so much in 
love with it that the society of pure women only brings 
to him shameful suggestions ? And yet, he thinks he is 
not ruined ! Ruined ? He is rotten. If mind were sub- 
ject to the laws of matter, and moral corruption were 



Jehu Jones. 205 

accompanied by the phenomena which characterize phy- 
sical decay, he would stink like carrion. 

I have no words with which to express my sense of 
the ruin which this single vice has wrought in him. Men 
who drink are sometimes reformed, and if they have not 
proceeded too far in their vice, they come back to a self- 
respectful manhood. The taint left upon their morals 
is not so deep that it cannot be eradicated, but a man 
who has been debauched by licentiousness, is incurable. 
I do not mean that he cannot reform, but that he must 
always be weak, and must always carry with him a sense 
of degradation and shame. Does Mr. Jones persist in 
believing that he is not ruined ? There is, of course, 
one aspect of his case in which he is not. 

It is possible for him to reform, but he has no idea of 
reforming. He bases no hopes or calculations on reforma- 
tion. That is why I declare him to be ruined. He volun- 
tarily blocks up the only way of escape from ruin. If 
a man, loving his welfare, speaks to him of reformation, 
he is angry with him. If he ventures to reprove him 
for his vices, he bids hirn mind his own business. He 
braces himself against every influence which is intended 
to reform him. He joins hands with those who are nearer 
the grand catastrophe of their lives than himself. He 
scoffs at temperance and purity in life. He laughs at 
religion. He glories in his independence of all weak and 
womanish notions of morals and life, yet God knows that 
in these weak and womanish notions of morals and of life 



206 Concerning the Jones Family. 

abide his only hope of deliverance from a career whose 
end is certain disaster and misery. Let him look at the 
poor women who share his debaucheries. Are they 
ruined, or are they not ? How great a chance does any 
one of them stand of reformation or of a happy life ? 
Can he not see that their lives are morally certain to end 
in wreck ? Does he not know that their steps tend di- 
rectly into the blackness of darkness — into a horrible 
tempest of remorse, whose howlings, even now, ring in 
their ears in the intervals of artificial madness ? What 
is he better than they ? He is no better than they. They 
are his equals and his companions, travelling the same 
path — bound to the same perdition. 

Would to heaven I could paint to his imagination the 
horrors of a lost life, that he and all who may gaze upon 
the picture might shrink from the gulf, and make haste 
to reach safer and higher ground ! I would call up to 
his vision his former self — the unpolluted boy and young 
man — full of life, and joy, and generous impulses, with 
inclinations drawing him toward sin, and pure influences 
from parents and home and heaven dissuading him 
from it. I would show him how, yielding to these bet- 
ter influences, he might now be an honored member of 
society, with a virtuous wife at his side, and pleasant 
children at his knee — with a smiling heaven above him, 
a safe future before him — with conscious freedom from 
the slavery of thirst and desire — with self-respect, and 
that strength which comes from the possession of the 



Jehu Jones. 207 

respect of others. I would show him all his possibilities 
of excellence in manhood, of virtuous happiness, of self- 
denying effort for the good of society, of domestic de- 
light, of faith and confidence in a great and glorious 
future. And having shown him all these, I would show 
him all those — lost ! I would show him a life that might 
have been that of an angel thrown away — its physical 
health and resources wasted in debaucheries — its mind 
feasting only on impure imaginations and delighting only 
in impure society — its heart reeking with corruption — 
its pure ambition dead — its present controlled by animal 
appetites, rendered foul by indulgence and fierce by 
their feverish food, and its future overclouded by fear. 
I would show him a man — the noblest being God has 
placed on the earth — thrown away — transformed into a 
beast — a gross, unreasoning thing, that glories in its ap- 
petites, and boasts of their indulgence — a being lost to 
decency, to self-respect, to happiness, to good society, 
to God — lost even to the poor inheritance of conscious 
shame. 

A lost life ! What is it ? Theologians stickle about 
words in describing the future of the vicious, but if any 
theologian can tell me how a man can live the life of the 
beast, subjecting his soul, with all its pure aspirations 
and inspirations, to the service of lust, and throw away 
his life in this miserable perversion, and be able to look 
back upon it from the other side of the dark river with 
anything but remorse, he will explain to me the strangest 



208 Concerning the Jones Family. 

anomaly of the moral universe. The thing is impossi- 
ble. A lost life is something that belongs to a lost soul. 
What is in store for such a soul, of possible reform in 
the long ages which lie before it, I cannot tell. I only 
know that it has lost its best chance, and, so far as I 
know, its only chance, for everlasting happiness. I only 
know that such a soul must go before its Maker a pol- 
luted thing, full of regret for its life of folly and of sin, 
consciously out of sympathy with all pure and heavenly 
society, shorn by the death of its body of every source 
of pleasure. I know that Jehu Jones is losing his life — 
that he is marching straight into the jaws of physical 
and spiritual destruction. He refuses to reform. He 
scoffs at reform. What remains ? A life — lost ! My 
God ! What a surrender of thy gift is this ! 

It would be a gratification to me, sweeter than any 
material success, to turn his feet into the path of virtue ; 
but I have not much faith in so happy a result of this 
expostulation. For many years I have watched the ca- 
reer of such men as he. Death has reaped a dozen 
crops of them within my short memory. The young 
men who occupied ten years ago the position which he 
occupies to-day, are nearly all of them dead. One. re- 
mains, here and there, a played-out man, whom circum- 
stances have restrained from going on to absolute suicide. 
The rest have hidden their faces in the grave, and no 
one speaks of them except as of men who lost their lives. 
Let him look back and see how many of those with 



Jehu Jones. 209 

whom he has joined in carousal and debauchery are now 
dead. They are scattered all along the track of his dis- 
sipated life. How many of his companions have re- 
formed ? Can he name one ? I hope he can name 
many, but if he can, he is more fortunate than I am. 
Now, I have but little hope of saving him, but it would 
give me more joy than it would be possible for me to 
express to be able so to present to him his situation as 
to frighten him back from the precipice which he is 
rapidly approaching. If any entreaty of mine could 
save him, I would willingly get on my knees before him, 
and beg him to save himself by immediate reform. I 
would do anything to arrest his progress to destruction, 
and I would do anything to turn the feet of those who 
are younger than he from the life which he is leading. 

I have written this paper mainly to arrest the atten- 
tion and secure the salvation of those who are tempted 
as he was, when younger, to forsake the path of temper- 
ance and purity. It is more than likely that when he 
commences this paper, and notices its drift, he will lay 
it down without reading it. It is more than likely that 
many young men who are not fallen, but who are liable 
to fall, will read the whole of it. It is mainly for the use 
and the warning of these men, that I have drawn his 
picture, and I place it before them with hopefulness of 
a good result. I would show them by his life whither 
license leads. I would show them by his loss what illicit 
indulgence costs. I would warn them by the disasters 



210 Concerning the* Jones Family. 

and death of their friends to abstain from the intoxicat- 
ing cup, and to shun the house of her whose steps take 
hold on hell. Licentiousness, were it not the vice of all 
ages, might be called the special vice of this age. Cer- 
tain it is that never in the history of Puritan America 
did this vice reap to its infectious bosom such harvests 
of the young as it now is reaping. Certain it is that this 
vice never spread its temptations before the public with 
such impunity as now. The community seems to be 
benumbed, discouraged by its boldness, strength, and 
prevalence. It literally advertises itself in the public 
streets, and no man lifts indignantly his voice against it. 
Rum and riot thrive. The dram-shop and the brothel 
are everywhere, and into either of these no man can go 
without endangering both his body and his soul. Mr. 
Jehu Jones will some time know how precious a posses- 
sion is in the hands of these young men — he will reach 
the time when he would give the world, were it his, to 
win back the innocence and health and peace, which he 
will have forever lost — the time when he would esteem it 
a privilege to adjure them to keep their bodies and their 
souls from the grasp of those appetites which will have 
borne him into the realm of despair. 



THOMAS ARNOLD JONES, 

SCHOOLMASTER. 

CONCERNING THE REQUIREMENTS AND THE TEN- 
DENCIES OF HIS PROFESSION. 

WHEN I review the life and character of Dr. 
Thomas Arnold — a man in whose honor the 
subject of this sketch was named, it is easy for me 
to understand why he was so great a schoolmaster. 
He was a profound scholar, surpassing in attainments 
most of the professional men of his time. He was a 
rare historian, with a minute knowledge and a philo- 
sophical appreciation of modern times, and that mas- 
ter of antiquity which enabled him to write a History 
of Rome which competent critics have characterized 
as " the best history in the language." He was a theo- 
logian of the highest class, paying but little respect to 
systems constructed by men, but drawing directly from 
the fountain of all theological knowledge — the Bible. 
Above all, he was a man — a large-hearted, catholic man 
— a gentle, loving man — full of enthusiasm — devoted to 



212 Concerning the Jones Family. 

reform, in constant communication with the best minds 
of his age through a private correspondence which aston- 
ishes all who now look upon its record — a laborious, con- 
scientious, Christian man. Knowing all this of the man, 
it is not surprising to me that he was the greatest school- 
master of his generation, or that we cannot find his peer 
among the schoolmasters of to-day. 

I heard some years ago that the member of the Jones 
family who was named in honor of Dr. Arnold, purposed 
to make teaching the business of his life. I know com- 
paratively little about him, personally, but I know what, 
in the definitions of the day, fitting one's self for teach- 
ing means. It is commonly understood that when a 
man is " fitted for teaching" he is fitted to conduct reci- 
tations in the various branches of learning pursued in 
the ordinary schools, having thoroughly gone through 
the usual text-books himself. If a man knows grammar, 
he is " fitted to teach" grammar. If a man has learned 
arithmetic, and natural philosophy, and astronomy, and 
moral science, as he finds them in the accredited text- 
books, he is "fitted" to teach all those branches of 
learning. We hear constantly of young men and women 
who are "fitting themselves for teaching," and we know 
exactly what the process is. We hear often of those 
who travel in foreign parts as a preparation for labor in 
the pulpit, and in other professions, but I do not re- 
member an instance of travel, undertaken by man or 
woman, as a preparation for teaching. "Fitness" for 



Thomas Arnold Jones. 213 

teaching seems to consist wholly in the ability to con- 
duct recitations ; and when this ability is compassed, so 
that a candidate for the teacher's office is able to pass 
an examination before a board more or less competent 
for the service, he is " fitted" for teaching. 

It is true that teachers fitted in this way for their 
work are competent to impart what, in the common lan- 
guage of the time, is called " an education." With all 
that is written intelligibly on this subject of education at 
the present time — and in my judgment, the subject is 
better understood now than it has ever been before — it 
is astonishing how almost universally it is the opinion 
that education consists in the cramming into a child's 
mind the contents of a pile of text-books. I do not 
think that I exaggerate at all when I say that three- 
quarters of the teachers of American youth practically 
consider fitness for teaching to consist in the ability to 
conduct recitations from the usual text-books, and that 
three-quarters of the people who have children to be 
educated regard education as consisting entirely in ac- 
quiring the ability to answer such questions as these 
teachers may propose from the text-books in their 
hands. The larger view of teaching and of education is 
not the prevalent view. Teaching is conducted often by 
men who are not competent to do anything else. They 
take up teaching as a preparation for other work. A 
man teaches as a preparation for preaching — as a step- 
ping-stone for something better — as a means of earning 



214 Concerning the Jones Family. 

money to enable him to learn some other work. " Fit- 
ness for teaching " seems to come a long time before fit- 
ness for anything else comes, and is certainly not re- 
garded as indicating a very high degree of intellectual 
advancement. 

I have no means of knowing how far I have defined 
Mr. Jones' notions, or his attainments, in these state- 
ments, but I have prepared him, certainly, for the 
proposition that real fitness for teaching only comes 
with the most varied and generous culture, with the best 
talents enthusiastically engaged, and the noblest Chris- 
tian character. Dr. Arnold was a great schoolmaster 
simply because he was a great man. His " fitness" for 
hearing recitations was the smallest part of his fitness 
for teaching. Indeed, it was nothing but what he shared 
in common with the most indifferent of his assistants at 
Rugby. His fitness for teaching consisted in his knowl- 
edge of human nature and of the world, his pure and 
lofty aims, his self-denying devotion to the work which 
employed his time and powers, his lofty example, his 
strong, generous, magnetic manhood. That which fitted 
him peculiarly for teaching was precisely that which 
would have fitted him peculiarly for any other high of- 
fice in the service of men. His knowledge of the ordi- 
nary text-books may not have been greater than that 
which Mr. Jones possesses. His excellence as a teacher 
did not reside in his eminence as a scholar and a man 
of science, though that eminence is undisputed ; but in 



Thomas Arnold Jones. 215 

that power to lead and inspire — to reinforce and fructify 
— the young minds that were placed in his care. He 
filled those minds with noble thoughts. He trained 
them to labor with right motives for grand ends. He 
baptized them with his own sweet and strong spirit. He 
glorified the dull routine of toil by keeping before the 
toilers the end of their toil — a noble character — that 
power of manhood of which so high an example was 
found in himself. 

Now let Mr. Jones ask himself how well fitted for 
teaching he is, tried by the standard which I place be- 
fore him in the character of Dr. Arnold. I do not ask 
whether he is as great and good a man as Dr. Arnold. 
I do not require that he should be as great and good as 
he ; but I ask him whether he now regards, or whether 
he has ever regarded — save in the most general sense — 
this matter of fitness for teaching as being anything 
more than fitness to govern a school, and conduct reci- 
tations intelligently ? Having acquired this sort of fit- 
ness sufficiently to enable him to get a position, is he 
pushing in the pursuit of that higher fitness which will 
give him the power of an inspirer of the youth who are 
placed in his charge. That is the question most inter- 
esting not only to his pupils, but to him. Is he making 
progress as a man, by constant culture ? Is he bringing 
his mind into communication with other minds, that he 
may gain vitality and force by contact and collision ? Is 
he reading — studying — striving to lift himself out of the 



216 Concerning the Jones Family. 

dead literalism of his recitation-rooms, so that he can 
win higher ground, whither he may call the young feet 
that grow weary with plodding ? Outgrowing all bond- 
age to forms and technicalities and mere words and 
names, has he mastered ideas, so that he can give vitality 
to his teachings ? Do these text-books, to the mastery 
of which he devoted some years, and in the exposition of 
which he now spends much of his time, still enthrall him 
with the thought that they hold the secret of an edu- 
cation within their covers ; or, standing above them, 
does he look down upon them as rudimentary, and as 
things which, in the consummation of an education, are 
left far behind ? 

In the course of his education, he was, as I happen to 
remember, placed under the tutelage of several different 
masters. Will he now look back and recall them all, 
and tell me which of them he remembers with the most 
grateful pleasure ? Will he tell me which of them all 
did him the most good — which of them left the deepest 
mark upon his character, and accomplished most in 
building up and furnishing his mind ? Was it the most 
learned man of them all, or was it the wisest man ? 
Was it he who was most at home in the text-books, or 
he whose mind was fullest of ideas ? I know that he can 
give but one answer to my question. The answer will 
be that he who was most of a man was the best teacher, 
and the name of that one will always awaken enthusiasm. 
He has been peculiarly unfortunate if he has not, at 



Thomas Arnold Jones. 217 

some time in his life been under a teacher who had the 
power to inspire him to such an extent that all study be- 
came a pleasure to him, and the school-room, with its 
tasks and competitions and emulations, the happiest spot 
which the earth held. And now, when he looks back 
to this man, when he hears his name mentioned, his 
mind kindles with a new fire, as if he had touched one 
of the permanent sources of his moral and intellectual 
life. His best teacher was the man who aroused him — 
who gave him high aims and lofty aspirations — who 
made him think, and taught him to organize into living 
and useful forms the knowledge which he helped him to 
win. In short, he was not the man who crammed him, 
but the man who educated him — who educated those 
powers in which reside his real manhood. 

I wish to impress upon Mr. Jones the great truth that 
his excellence and success as a teacher will depend en- 
tirely upon the style and strength of his manhood. The 
ability to maintain order in a school, and to conduct 
recitations, with measurable intelligence, is not extraor- 
dinary. It is possessed by a large number of quite ordi- 
nary people, but that higher power to which I have en- 
deavored to direct his attention is extraordinary. The 
teachers are not many who possess it, or who intelli- 
gently aim to win it. It is not a garment to be put on 
and taken off like a coat, but it is the result of the lov- 
ing contact of a generous nature with those great and 

beautiful realities of which the text-books only present 
10 



2i8 Concerning the Jones Family. 

us the dry definitions. The greatest naturalist of this 
country — perhaps the greatest of any country — was a 
teacher whose equal it would be hard to find among a 
nation of teachers ; and this was true, not because he 
knew so much, but because he was so much. No mind 
could come within the reach of his voice and influence 
without being touched by his sublime enthusiasm. No 
pupil ever spoke of, or now recalls him, save with bright- 
ened or moistened eyes. I have heard women pro- 
nounce his name in many places, scattered between 
Maine and the Mississippi, and always in such terms of 
gratitude and praise that it has seemed as if the brightest 
days which they recalled were not those of childhood, 
and not those spent with parents, or husbands, but those 
passed at the feet of that noblest of educators and in- 
spirers — Agassiz. 

I have already intimated that this question as to what 
kind of a teacher Mr. Jones is to be is quite as impor- 
tant to himself as to his pupils. The character of a 
schoolmaster has been, in the years that are past, noto- 
riously a dry one. It is really sad to see with what little 
affection many old teachers are regarded by those who 
were once their pupils. There are men who, having 
spent twenty-five years of their lives in teaching, are 
always spoken of by the boys who have been under their 
charge as " old " somebody .or other. " Old Boggs," or 
" Old Noggs," or " Old Scroggs " has stories told about 
him, and is never mentioned in terms of respect — much 



Thomas Arnold Jones. 219 

less in terms of affection. Now why is it that these men 
are remembered so lightly ? It is simply because they 
are teachers, and not men. They are all good scholars 
enough, but they have not that in their characters and 
personalities that wins the love and respect of their pu- 
pils. I suppose it must be admitted that there is some- 
thing in the business of teaching which tends to make 
the character dry. The drudgery and detail of teaching 
— are hardly more interesting than the drudgery and de- 
tail of the work of the farm, or of the kitchen. Indeed, 
I think the work of handling the rake and the hay-fork a 
more refreshing exercise for the mind and body than 
that of turning over and over a verb, or a sum in simple 
addition, or even a proposition in Euclid. This ever- 
lasting handling of materials that have lost their interest 
is a very depressing process, to a mind capable of higher 
work ; and a mind that can interest itself in such work, 
and find real satisfaction in it, is necessarily a dry and 
unlovely one. I beg not to be misunderstood with re- 
gard to this latter statement. A teacher may be inter- 
ested in his routine of labor through the effect that he 
aims to work on the young minds before him, and he 
should be intensely interested in it ; but there is a class 
of teachers who seem to be really interested in the 
drudgery of repetition, and these are always dry charac- 
ters, and they grow drier and drier, until they dry up 
.and die. 

Mr. Jones has "fitted" himself for teaching, in the 



220 Concerning the Jones Family. 

usual way. He is prepared, by the mastery of his text- 
books, to " teach school." The probability is that he 
will never have any pupils who will be as familiar with • 
these books as himself, and, so far as maintaining his 
position is concerned, he will have nothing to do but to 
handle over and over again familiar and hackneyed ma- 
terials. Whatever there may be of moral and mental 
nutriment in these materials, he has already appro- 
priated and digested. There is in them no further 
growth for him, and, so far as any good to him is con- 
cerned, he might as well handle over so many dry sticks. 
Exactly here is where a multitude of teachers stop. 
They never take a step in advance. The work of teach- 
ing is severe, and when they are through with their daily 
tasks, they are in no mood for study, or experiment, or 
intellectual culture in any broad and generous sense. 
Any mind will starve on such a diet as this, and the 
work of instruction becomes to such a mind degraded 
below the position of an intellectual employment. I 
warn him against the danger of falling into this unfruit- 
ful routine, which is certain to dwarf him, and give him 
a dry and unattractive character. He must make in- 
tellectual growth and progress by the means of fresh in- 
tellectual food, or he must retrograde. 

There is another reason why the business of teaching 
has a tendency to injure the character. While contact 
with young and fresh natures tends to soften and beautify 
character under some circumstances, I doubt whether 



Thomas Arnold Jones. 221 

this influence is much felt by those who are engaged in 
teaching. We take into our mouths some varieties of 
fruits as a corrective, which would hardly be regarded 
as the best of daily food. We take medicines which 
operate kindly for a brief period, but, if they are con- 
tinued longer, the system becomes accustomed to them, 
and they lose their medicinal effect. It is thus with the 
influence of children. To the literary man, or the man 
of business, the occasional society of children and youth 
is very grateful and refreshing, but it soon tires, and if 
necessarily long continued, becomes irksome. A really 
vigorous and healthy mind, forced to remain long in 
contact with the minds of children, turns with a strong 
appetite toward maturity for stimulus and satisfaction. 
Now Mr. Jones will be obliged to spend the most of his 
time with children, or those whose minds are immature. 
He is almost constantly with those who know less than 
he does, and in this society he will be quite likely to for- 
get — as many schoolmasters have forgotten before him 
— that he is not the wisest and most learned man in the 
world. It is under these circumstances that pedants are 
made, alike conceited and contemptible. To a mature 
mind, there is no intellectual stimulus in the constant 
society of the immature, and he is certain to become 
a dwarfed man if he does not mingle freely in the so- 
ciety of his equals and his superiors. I do not know of 
a man in the world who, more than the teacher, needs 
the corrective and refreshing and liberalizing influences 



222 Concerning the Jones Family. 

of general society and generous culture, to keep him 
from irreparable damage at the hand of his calling. He 
must mix with thinking men and women, and he must 
feed himself with the products of fruitful lives, in books, 
or his degeneration is certain ; and he will come to be 
regarded as a dry, pedantic, uninteresting man. 

A man or woman who does nothing but deal out dry 
facts to small minds is certain to become over-critical in 
small things. Mr. Jones has not been a schoolmaster so 
long as to forget the peculiar emotion once excited in him 
by the presence of a " school-ma'am." Before this day of 
large ideas, to be a school-ma'am was to be a stiff, con- 
ceited, formal, critical character, which it was not alto- 
gether pleasant for a man to come into contact with. 
There seemed to be something in the work which these 
women performed that threw them out of sympathy with 
the free-and-easy world around them. They carried 
all the formal proprieties, all the verbal precisenesses, 
all the pattern dignities of the school-room into society ; 
and one could not help feeling that they had lost some- 
thing of the softness, and sweetness, and roundness that 
belong to the unperverted female nature. All this has 
been improved by the modern correctives, but the rem- 
iniscences will help him to comprehend one phase of the 
danger to which he is exposed. I think that if the world 
were to give its unbiased testimony touching this sub- 
ject, it would say that it has found teachers to be men 
who give undue importance to small details, and who 



Thomas Arnold Jones. 223 

seem to lose the power to regard and treat the great 
questions which interest humanity most in a large and 
liberal way. 

And now, before closing, let me do the honor to his 
position which I find it in my heart to give, for I hold 
that position second to none. The Christian teacher of 
a band of children combines the office of the preacher 
and the parent, and has more to do in shaping the mind 
and the morals of the community than preacher and 
parent united. The teacher who spends six hours a day 
with my child, spends three times as many hours as I 
do, and twenty-fold more time than my pastor does. I 
have no words to express my sense of the importance of 
having that office filled by men and women of the purest 
motives, the noblest enthusiasm, the finest culture, the 
broadest charities, and the most devoted Christian pur- 
pose. A teacher should be the strongest and most an- 
gelic man that breathes. No man living is intrusted 
with such precious material. No man living can do so 
much to set human life to a noble tune. No man living 
needs higher qualifications for his work. Is Mr. Thomas 
Arnold Jones " fitted for teaching? " I do not ask him 
this question to discourage him, but to stimulate him to 
an effort at preparation which shall continue as long as 
he continues to teach. 



MRS. ROSA HOPPIN JONES. 

CONCERNING HER DISLIKE OF ROUTINE AND HER 
DESIRE FOR CHANGE AND AMUSEMENT. 

WHEN I first met Mrs. Rosa Hoppin Jones, she 
was a restless child. She is now married into 
the great Jones family, and henceforward, through all 
time, the blood of the Hoppins will mingle with that of 
the Joneses. What changes will be wrought by this 
combination of strange currents does not now appear, 
though I suspect that they will not be strongly marked. 
Indeed, I am inclined to believe that there have been 
Hoppins in the family before, for I find many Joneses 
who constantly remind me of the Hoppins, and many 
Hoppins whose ways are suggestive of the Joneses. 

The children of the Hoppins do not differ in any es- 
sential respect from the children of the Joneses. Pretty 
nearly all children are, or might be, Hoppins. They 
live upon little excitements. They are constantly on 
the alert for new sources of pleasure. They delight in 
being away from home, in new and strange places. 
They are miserable without society and miserable with- 



Mrs. Rosa Hoppin Jones. 225 

out change. Children have no power of application to 
the performance of duty, no sources of interest and 
amusement within themselves — no love of work. They 
grasp a new toy with eagerness, and tire of it before it is 
broken. The moment they are compelled to sit down, 
they seize upon a book, or ask for a story, or whine with 
discontent. They are unhappy unless something is go- 
ing on for their amusement, or they are going some- 
where, or doing something, with amusement for their 
special object. The genuine Hoppins rarely outgrow 
this disposition, but carry it with them to their graves. 
The Hoppins do not sit down quietly in their houses of 
an afternoon, unless compelled to do so by circumstances. 
They are either in the street, or at the house of a neigh- 
bor. In the evening, either their houses are full of Hop- 
pins, or they are out visiting Hoppins, or attending some 
place of amusement, or doing something at home to 
make them forget that they are at home. Nothing so 
weighs down the spirit of a Hoppin as home duty and 
the confinement which it involves. Children are half 
hated because they interfere with indulgence in the pas- 
sion for going somewhere and doing something pleasant, 
and husbands become bores when they happen to love 
home, and like to find there a thrifty and contented 
home life. 

Mrs. Rosa Hoppin Jones is still a child. She is mar- 
ried, it is true, and she has children, but I do not see 
that she is changed at all. She has the same love of 



226 Concerning the Jones Family. 

novelty that possessed her when she was a little girl — 
the same greed for change — the same fondness for " vis- 
iting" — the same restless impatience with work — the 
same desire for constant and varied amusement. She is 
fond enough of dress, but dress does not absorb her. 
She tires of the old dresses, it is true, and greets the 
new ones with genuine pleasure, but, after all, dress is 
not her passion. Fine dress costs her too much care 
and trouble, and personal vanity is not her besetting 
weakness. She will willingly leave all this matter of 
fine dress to Mrs. Royal Purple Jones and her circle, if 
she can be permitted to have what she calls " a good 
time." She delights in a party or a picnic, or an excur- 
sion, or a play, or a pageant, or a circus, or an Ethio- 
pian concert, or a frolic of any kind ; and she never 
passes a day at home, even when she has around her 
the society she loves best, without the sense of irksome- 
ness. She will either have her house full of those who 
destroy all the sweet privacy and communion of home- 
life, or she will invade the home-life of some other per- 
son — Hoppin or otherwise. And yet, I like her. She is 
not a disagreeable person at all. Her nature is affec- 
tionate and pleasant, her tastes are social, she is gener- 
ous, and pure, and true-hearted — as much so as she was 
when she was a child. Her husband is fond of her, and 
proud of her. He has tried to adapt himself to her, and 
take delight in that which most interests her ; yet I can- 
not but think that a man who carries his burden of care 



Mrs. Rosa Hoppin Jones. 227 

would delight most in a quiet home, and in the certainty 
of finding a contented wife in it, whenever he comes 
back from the work by which he supports it. 

There are some women in the world — and she seems 
to be one of them — who never heartily, and with devoted 
purpose, enter upon the work of life. She does what 
she is compelled to do by circumstances. If circum- 
stances should compel her to do nothing, she would do 
nothing. All work is an interference with her favorite 
pursuits, or her mode of spending time. Nothing would 
be more agreeable to her than to have the privileges of 
going, and gadding, and seeking for fresh amusements 
all her life. She certainly must recognize a difference 
between herself and many estimable women of her ac- 
quaintance. She knows many women who, from choice, 
and on their individual responsibility, have undertaken a 
life-long task to which they cheerfully and systematically 
devote their powers. They keep their houses, and un- 
derstand the minutest affairs connected with them. They 
devote themselves to the right training, in body, mind, 
and morals, of the little ones born of them. In society, 
they are the reliable ones — the women of character and 
consideration. They are women who use time for good 
ends, outside of themselves, and who take delight in ac- 
tion — in the useful employment of their powers. She 
must, I repeat, recognize a difference between herself 
and these women. They have their life in exertion ; 
she has hers in amusement. She exercises no power, 



228 Concerning the Jones Family. 

but finds her sweetest satisfaction in the varied impres- 
sions that are made upon her sensibilities. 

There is another class of women from whom she finds 
herself differing very appreciably. I allude to those 
whose greatest delight is in opportunities for culture. 
If she reads a book, she reads it for the same purpose 
that a child reads a book. She reads it only for amuse- 
ment ; she never reads for instruction. The idea of 
taking up a book for purposes of study is one that never 
occurs to her ; and she has no delight in a book that 
taxes her mind. Whatever she reads must amuse her — 
interest her — absorb her — or she lays it down and calls 
it stupid. There is no culture in such reading as this — 
there is only dissipation. She reads a book for the 
same purpose that she attends a theatre, or engages in a 
frolic — for the simple purpose of having her emotional 
nature excited, and her sensibilities played upon. She 
never seeks for mental nourishment or mental exercise 
anywhere. Thus, though she reads a great deal, and 
really enjoys some works that are enjoyable by sensible 
people, she gains nothing. She reads for momentary 
excitement, and wins nothing of permanent use. She 
cannot weigh a book. She cannot even talk about a 
book, further than to say that she likes or dislikes it. 
The philosophy or the lesson of a novel or a poem is 
never grasped by her ; and every book she reads is to 
her just what Mother Goose's Melodies are to the child, 
and no more. 



Mrs. Rosa Hoppin Jones. 229 

She must also perceive a difference between herself, 
and those who love society for society's sake. There 
are many women who love society because of the men- 
tal stimulus it brings them — because in the presence of 
intelligent and sprightly men and women, they feel 
themselves brightened and strengthened, and because 
they find in such society the most grateful opportunity 
to act upon others. They are talking people who think 
before talking, and who think while they talk. I have 
noticed that while Mrs. Jones is exceedingly fond of 
society, she always shuns these people. She can talk 
nonsense, after a fashion, but her special delight is in 
hearing other people talk nonsense ; and the man or 
woman in society who says the drollest things, and 
' 'runs on" in the wildest way, and does the most to 
amuse her and to relieve her from the necessity of either 
thinking or talking, is the one who monopolizes her at- 
tention. If she has any special horror, it attaches to 
being cornered with a sensible man or woman, and being 
expected to talk sense with them. She must see, there- 
fore, that she does not go into society with anything in 
her hand to pay for that which she receives, except her 
agreeable person, her willing ears, and her ready and 
complimentary laugh. These make her popular enough ; 
but she ought to be just a little ashamed to think that 
her love of society would be destroyed if she could find 
in society none but those who have brains and a dispo- 
sition to use them in sensible talk. She ought to be 



230 Concerning the Jones Family. 

ashamed that all social circles are stupid to her in the 
degree that they are brilliant to the wise and the intel- 
lectual and the ready-witted. She ought to be ashamed 
that the clever buffoon of a company interests her most, 
and helps her most to what she calls " a good time." 

She must perceive, too, that she is very different from 
those women to whom home is the sweetest spot on the 
earth. I have known many women who have become so 
much enamored of home that they will never leave it 
willingly. They never go into society without a sense 
of sacrifice. They cling to home as if they had grown 
to it — as if every tendril of their heart's life had wound 
itself around its pleasant things, and could be only dis- 
located by violence. This love of home and this self- 
confinement to its walls and its duties may become, and 
often does become, an intensely morbid passion of the 
soul — just as much to be deprecated as an unhealthy 
love of change — but Mrs. Jones cannot but feel that a 
supreme love of home and devotion to its duties are very 
lovely, and that the best women whom she knows enter- 
tain this love and this devotion far beyond herself. Her 
home is not her refuge, so much as the home of her 
neighbor is. When she wishes to be happy — when she 
feels the need of some comforting and soothing influence 
— she does not draw the curtains of her home about her, 
and draw the loved ones of her home closer to her heart, 
but she rushes to her neighbor that she may forget her 
troubles in the diversions of lively society. Her life is 



Mrs. Rosa Hoppin Jones. 231 

not at home. Home is mainly her boarding-place ; and 
if there were no such thing as "visiting" to be done, 
she would feel life to be shorn of most of its attraction. 
In short, she is never so much at home as she is when 
she is not at home. She is affected by a chronic mental 
uneasiness which prevents her from remaining long in 
any one place— especially in any place to which a duty 
holds her. 

I have thus endeavored to reveal her to herself, by 
calling her attention to the contrast which she — con- 
sciously I must believe — presents to four different classes 
of women worthy to be respected and loved, viz. : to 
those who, by definite purpose, have devoted themselves 
to a life of active duty at home and in society ; to those 
whose satisfactions are found in culture and its oppor- 
tunities ; to those who love society for the mental stim- 
ulus and strength it imparts, and to those who are 
supremely in love with home and its quiet enjoyments. 
To one of these four classes, or to sundry, or all of them 
combined, she must know that the best women of this 
world belong ; and I believe that she has sense enough 
to understand and sensibility enough to feel that she is 
not of this number. She is a frivolous woman, con- 
stantly on the lookout for new sources of pleasure, and 
with no definite purpose except to get along as easily as 
possible with such duties as circumstances have forced 
upon her, and to have just as many "good times" as 
circumstances will permit her to have. 



232 Concerning the Jones Family. 

I hope she will permit me to say, in all frankness, 
that I believe she is made for something better than this. 
She has qualities of body and mind and heart out of 
which a noble woman may be made — qualities which I 
cannot help but admire any more than I can help loving 
the light. Her nature is open and frank, and she will 
admit at once everything I have said concerning herself. 

She possesses a pleasant temper, a pure flow of ani- 
mal spirits, an affectionate nature, and a general desire 
that others may have just as good a time as she has. 
But she gets no mental growth, she accomplishes no 
worthy purpose, she is not the steadily radiant centre 
of a worthy home life. She is not doing a true woman's 
work in the world, for husband, children, and friends, or 
gaining a true woman's wealth of character and culture. 
She is, as I have said before, a child — with children on 
her lap and at her knee — children who do not very pro- 
foundly respect her — children whose acute perceptions 
have already learned her weakness — children who already 
treat her like a child. Is she never to be a woman ? 
She ought not only to love home, but she ought to be the 
abiding corner-stone of home. Her husband's house 
is not home without her presence and her presidency. 
That restless mind of hers should have steady work and 
healthy food. It should have a business — work that will 
engage its powers in the accomplishment of a worthy 
object — work that will fill her time, and make these 
' 'visits" of hers and these " good times" of hers, the 



Mrs. Rosa Hoppin Jones. 233 

healthy diversions and not the absorbing pursuits of her 
life. There is a world of life and power in her. It only 
needs to be held and trained and put to noble, womanly 
service. I hope she is not so badly dissipated that her 
will has lost the decision necessary to execute the wish 
which I am sure now springs in her heart. 

If she should undertake reform let me warn her 
against a mistake that she will be quite likely to make. 
There are not a few women in the world, considered 
very useful and pious persons, who are useful and pious 
in the same way that she is useless and dissipated. They 
are just as fond of change and excitement as she is, and, 
being of a religious turn of mind, they seek religious ex- 
citements, and suppose themselves to be in the path of 
duty. They attend a prayer-meeting, or make visits to 
the poor, or wait at a hospital, or go to a benevolent 
sewing-circle, or distribute religious reading, or minister 
to the sick, or attend a stranger's funeral, for the change 
and excitement which they find in these things. They 
are just as fond of being away from home as she is, and 
they seek excitement and amusement for the same rea- 
son. I do not think that I entertain more respect for 
them than for Mrs. Jones., Perhaps the sort of dissipa- 
tion which they choose is preferable to hers, but their 
motives can hardly be called better. Some of these wo- 
men neglect their home duties very much, and they do 
it simply because they cannot obtain in them the excite- 
ment and amusement which they seek. Many of them 



234 Concerning the Jones Family. 

are out on what they suppose to be purely religious or 
benevolent errands, when they ought to be at home with 
their husbands and children. Becoming like these wo- 
men, she would only change her style of dissipation, 
without essentially changing her motive, or working a 
desirable revolution in her home-life. 

No ; she must learn the difficult lesson that in routine 
lives the real charm of life and the essential condition 
of progress and growth. That which is now irksome to 
her, must be heartily recognized as essential to her hap- 
piness. She must learn to be happy in the performance 
of a daily round of duty at home, and learn to be dis- 
satisfied unless that daily round of duty shall be per- 
formed. She must learn to take most pleasure in those 
excitements which flow from action, not passion. These 
excitements of sensibility in which she has her life are 
legitimately only diversions from routine. Ah! this 
routine which is so hateful to her ! Why — routine is the 
road to heaven and God. Routine is the pathway of 
the stars and the seasons, the songs of the tides, the 
burden of all the generations. The clouds sing it to 
the meadow, the meadow to the brook, the brook to the 
river, the river to the sea, and the sea to the clouds 
again, in everlasting circles of beauty and ministry. 
Routine is the natural path of all true human life. It is 
in this path that the feet grow strong and steady, and 
the soul adjusts itself familiarly to its conditions. It is 
in this path only that genuine .peace and contentment 



Mrs. Rosa Hoppin Jones. 235 

are found ; and she must, of stern and settled purpose, 
hold herself to this path until she feels the upward lift 
of its spiral round, and know that she is reaching a 
calmer atmosphere and a more womanly because a di- 
viner life. She should never be afraid of routine. It 
has in it the secret of her reformation and the condition 
of her success. 

If she could but see, as I see, what a grace thought- 
fulness would give her character, and could measure, as 
my imagination measures, the loveliness that would 
come to her through the chastening of her wayward im- 
pulses by work and self-devotion, I am sure she would 
fall in love with the picture, and make any sacrifice to 
realize its truthfulness. It pains me to see her so friv- 
olous, so childish, so incapable of work, so impatient of 
home restraint and routine, so fond of wandering, so de- 
voted to amusement and play ; for I know that the time 
must come when those animal spirits of hers will droop, 
when the light delights that now entertain her will be- 
come insipid, and when she will learn that her life has 
been wasted, in a childhood that rotted at last without 
ripening into womanhood. 



JEFFERSON DAVIS JONES, 

POLITICIAN. 

CONCERNING THE IMMORALITY OF HIS PURSUITS, 

AND THEIR EFFECT UPON HIMSELF AND 

HIS COUNTRY. 

THE love of that which we call country is among the 
highest and noblest passions of the soul. The 
love that kindles into joyful enthusiasm at the sight of a 
national symbol, that feels personally every insult of- 
fered to its object, that burns brightest in absence, 
that is full of chivalry, and bravery, and self-devotion, 
that sacrifices itself on battle-fields, and counts such 
sacrifice a joy and a glory, that lives even after a coun- 
try is lost, and passes down through many generations 
as a precious inheritance — this, if not religion in one of 
its forms of manifestation, is, certainly, next of kin. 
Indeed, there is something of every love, and of all love, 
in patriotism. Country is the patriot's mistress, his 
father and his mother, his brother and his sister, his 
home, his teacher, his friend, his treasure — the store- 
house into which he garners all his affections — heavenly 



Jefferson Davis Jones. 237 

and human — all his interests, aspirations, hopes ; and 
when necessity demands it, he turns his face and feet 
from mistress, father, mother, brother, sister, home, 
friend, and treasure, and gives himself to his country, 
in obedience to motives that are hardly to be distin- 
guished from the highest religious feelings and convic- 
tions which his bosom holds. I think it would be hard 
to tell where, in the sublimer walks of the soul, patriot- 
ism leaves off and religion begins. In many of its hum- 
bler manifestations patriotism doubtless halts this side 
of heaven ; but when it becomes sacrificial, its incense 
curls around the pillars of The Eternal Throne. 

It is to Christian patriotism that we are to look for all 
the motives which have any legitimate place in govern- 
ment, and the management of public affairs, yet it is to 
patriotism that resort is rarely made. For the selfish- 
ness of supremely selfish men has organized other and 
baser motives, by which all public policy is fashioned. 
The love of power, the love of office, and the love of 
money have all conspired in the organization of parties, 
which live upon lies, and which uniformly die, at last, 
for lack of dupes, or perish of their own corruptions. 

It is possible, of course, that two equally patriotic 
men may differ widely in their views of public policy — 
so widely that their opinions may furnish a legitimate 
basis for opposite political parties. Theoretically, there- 
fore, political parties have legitimate ground to stand 
upon, but, practically, they are a curse to the country. 



238 Concerning the Jones Family. 

For the love of party has always usurped the place of 
the love of country. Everything, on every side, is done 
in the name of patriotism, of course ; but patriotism is 
made subservient to, and is confounded with, party in- 
terest. Men forget " our country" in their mad devo- 
tion to " our side." It has always been so ; I fear it will 
always be so. History makes a uniform record of the 
fact that, however pure the birth of a party may be, and 
however patriotic may be the motives of the people who 
sustain it, it passes early into the hands of designing 
men, whose supremely selfish love of power controls its 
action and directs its issues, solely for personal and 
party advantage. 

Every thorough politician in the world — every man in 
whom love of party is stronger than love of country — 
every man in whom the love of power is the predomi- 
nant motive — is a possible traitor. It matters not what 
party he may belong to. I make the proposition broad 
enough to embrace all parties, and believe in it, as I be- 
lieve in any fundamental truth of the universe. A poli- 
tician is a man who looks at all public affairs from a self- 
ish standpoint. He loves power and office, and all 
that power and office bring of cash and consideration. 
Public measures are all tried by the standard of party 
interest. A measure which threatens to take away his 
power, or to reduce his personal or party influence, 
is always opposed. A measure which promises to 
strengthen his power or that of the party to which he is 



Jefferson Davis Jones. 239 

attached, is always favored. The good of his country- 
is a matter of secondary consideration. His venality 
and untruthfulness are as calculable, under given cir- 
cumstances, as if he were Satan himself. I know of no 
person so reliably unconscientious as the thorough poli- 
tician, and there is no politician of any stripe that I 
would trust with the smallest public interest if I could 
not see that his selfishness harmonized with the require- 
ments of the service. Therefore, I say that every poli- 
tician is a possible traitor. There is not a man in 
America who loves his party better than his country, or 
who permits party motives to control him in the dis- 
charge of his duties as a citizen, who would not betray 
his country at the call of his party. 

I introduce this paper upon Mr. Jefferson Davis 
Jones, with these statements, that I may the more easily 
show him to himself, and justify my opinion of him ; for 
it will be hard for me to convince him and the public of 
his immorality. The public mind is thoroughly sophis- 
ticated on this subject. The public has a suitable 
horror of gambling with dice and cards, but it is quite 
ready to call those most indecent and immoral games of 
chance which Wall street plays "operations in stocks." 
Nay, the public permits these operations to fix the prices 
of the property it holds in its hands, and, indirectly, of 
the bread it eats. It is quite as oblivious of the real 
character of the politicians who lead it by the nose. A 
clever politician who manages to keep power in his hands 



24-0 Concerning the Jones Family. 

for personal and party ends — who is unscrupulous in the 
choice of means for securing his purposes — who is not 
even suspected of a patriotic motive in any act of his 
life — is regarded with a degree of admiration and es- 
teem. He wins the object of his desire, and his success 
crowns his efforts with respectability. The man in whose 
honor Mr. Jones is named, finds it for his personal 
and political interest to plunge the country which has 
honored him into the most terrible war known in history, 
and' the people are filled with horror at his treachery 
and his ingratitude. Mr. Jones, actuated by the same 
motive, opposes him ; and owes to circumstances, and 
not to his principles, the fact that he is not in the other's 
shoes. If Jefferson Davis Jones, who now prates of 
liberty and patriotism and sundry party words and 
phrases, were in the dominions of Jefferson Davis, he 
would be his most willing instrument, without the slight- 
est change in the ruling motive of his life. 

Does he not feel that this is so ? Does he not feel 
that to all intents and purposes he makes merchandise 
of his country ? Does he not regard, and has he not for 
years regarded, politics as a grand, exciting game of 
mingled chance and skill, at which opposing sets of men 
play, not that advantage may accrue to their country or 
its institutions, but that the stakes of power and plunder 
may be won by them for selfish use ? Of course he 
knows this ; but it is not so much a matter of course that 
he knows this view to be immoral, and this treatment of 



I 



Jefferson Davis Jones. 241 

his country sacrilegious. He has been bred to these 
things, among men who were honored and respected. 
He has learned to gamble for power from men who first 
used him as their tool. He has learned all the tricks of 
the political hell. He pulls wires, and plays puppets, 
and veils his selfish purposes behind sacred names, and 
lies to the people whom he makes his dupes. Open 
falsehood, wicked innuendo, cunning evasion, shameless 
suppression, downright fraud — not one of these instru- 
ments does he hesitate to use when occasion demands 
for securing his personal and party ends. I tell him 
that these lies and subterfuges, over which he laughs and 
jests in private, are outrageous crimes against liberty, 
against good government, against a patriotic people, 
against the public morals, against God. 

What is this country that he is playing with so care- 
lessly — whose interests he is making secondary to his 
own ? It is the present home of fifty millions of people 
'■ — the future home of uncounted hundreds of millions of 
people, whose destiny is to be shaped and decided in a 
great degree by the institutions of the country, and the 
men who make and administer its laws. He cannot 
tamper with a single human right without awakening 
the groans of whole generations of men. He cannot 
cram a lie down the public throat, and manage to in- 
corporate that lie into public life, without vitiating the 
issues of that life through all coming time. He and his 

friends cannot lead the nation into mistakes of theory 
11 



242 Concerning the Jones Family. 

and practice without leading it into certain and serious 
disaster. The rebellion which cost us hundreds of thou- 
sands of priceless lives, and thousands of millions of 
treasure, was entirely the work of politicians. The peo- 
ple of this country are patriotic and loyal, when they 
are not deceived by politicians. We have only poli- 
ticians to fear. Selfish men have played their games 
for power over this country too long ; and they have 
already had one serious day of reckoning. Not a man 
fell in the horrible war to which we have alluded, who 
did not owe his death to those scheming politicians, 
who, in the past, have regarded their country simply as 
a chess-board on which they could play their game for 
power. 

What is this country that he is playing with so care- 
lessly? I ask again. It. is that for which a million 
men have voluntarily risked all of good that is covered 
by the name of "life." It is that for which the great 
and generous have been willing to relinquish home de- 
lights, and home pursuits, and fond hopes and expecta- 
tions, taking upon themselves the burdens of the camp, 
and yielding themselves to the sad chances of the bat- 
tle-field. It is that for which a nation of Christians 
has prayed before God with faithful persistence, men- 
tioning its name with tenderest love and reverence, 
morning and night, among the names they love best. 
It is the inheritance of our precious children — an in- 
heritance that may be one of honor — that may be one 



Jefferson Davis Jones. 243 

of shame. It is the property of history. Far down the 
vista of time, I see the man (whom it requires no pro- 
phetic eye to see) whose mind will weigh the character 
of this country, and whose pen will give his judgment 
record. I see him sit in the light of a dawning millen- 
nium, while the lurid fires that so recently filled the sky 
with flame, only feebly light the hem of the far horizon. 
Mr. Jones and I will have been dust five hundred years, 
when that calm pen shall begin its story — a story which 
shall determine for all the following generations of men 
whether he and I had a country or whether we died 
without one, or whether we were worthy of one, — a 
story which shall tell whether we wasted our inheritance 
— whether we bartered it away for party advantage, or 
saved and sanctified it by our patriotism. This man, 
so certainly unborn — so certain to live — has this coun- 
try in his hands to present to the great futurity of the 
world. He has me and he has Mr. Jones and all that 
we hold dear in his hands, and we cannot help our- 
selves ; and this country of ours we hold in trust for 
him. Shall we betray our trust, and damn ourselves 
and our country together ? 

That which gives me most apprehension for the future 
of my country is the fact that its affairs are in the hands 
of such men as he, and are likely to be. Theoretically, 
we are a self-governing nation ; practically, we are gov- 
erned by designing politicians. Theoretically, the peo- 
ple select their own candidates for office, and elect 



244 Concerning the Jones Family. 

them ;, practically, every candidate for office is selected 
by the politicians, the candidate himself being of the 
number, and the people are only used for voting, and 
for confirming the decrees of their political leaders. 
For fifty years this country has not been governed in 
the interest of patriotism, or been governed by the peo- 
ple. For fifty years, patriotism has not ruled in Wash- 
ington, or in any of the political centres of the nation. 
Occasionally, a true patriot has been placed in power, 
but it has always been a matter of accident. Occasion- 
ally, a patriot has been " available" for carrying out the 
purposes of the politicians, in their strife for power. 
But often imbecility and rascality have been found 
" available," and politicians have not failed to take ad- 
vantage of the fact. Selfish party men have ruled the 
country, and selfish party men are trying to ruin it. It 
is beyond dispute that the political leaders of the peo- 
ple of this country have uniformly been men without 
religion, and without even the pretension of religion. 
When a political man or a candidate for office has been 
found to be religious, the fact has been advertised as a 
remarkable one. Let us look at the great political 
leaders ; then at the lesser ones ; then at the whole 
brood of petty politicians who are their tools and the 
recipients of their favors. There cannot be found in all 
the country a class of men less regardless of Christian 
obligations, or more thoroughly the devotees of selfish 
interest. 



Jefferson Davis Jones. 245 

Yet this is called a Christian nation ! The theories 
and institutions - of the country are Christian, but the 
practice and the administration has as little to do with 
Christianity as possible. Do Mr. Jones and his asso- 
ciates, when laying out and prosecuting a political cam- 
paign, ever consult Christianity, — either its dictates or 
its interests ? Is he Christian in his treatment of an 
opponent ? Is he particular to use only Christian 
means in forwarding the interests of his candidates and 
his party ? Does he push a Christian principle any 
farther than it will pay as a party principle ? Does he 
not uniformly pander to the prejudices of the ignorant 
and flatter the vices of the vicious, while, at the same 
time, he hypocritically pretends to respect the religious 
convictions of the better elements of society ? Does he 
not mingle with the degraded, and court the smiles of 
those who live upon social vices, and descend to the 
meanest tricks to compass his ends ? He can have but 
one answer to these questions. The political machinery 
of this country — that by which elections are carried as 
they always are carried, in the interest of a party — is 
simply and irredeemably unchristian. It has not in it 
even the poor quality of decency. 

I have written in this general way about these things, 
because the subject of my paper is only the representa- 
tive of a class, and because I am more interested in 
my country than I am in either him or his class ; but it 
is proper that I say something to him about the effect of 



246 Concerning the Jones Family. 

his political life upon himself. He has probably seen 
enough of it to learn that its lack of religious principle 
is not attributable entirely to the fact that only bad 
men engage in it. He has learned that many men 
who hate gone into political life good men have come 
out of it bad men. He has seen Christian men there 
who failed to maintain their integrity among the temp- 
tations that assailed them. He has seen good men 
elected to office, by combinations of influences, who, 
in their selfish desire to retain their places, have 
thrown themselves into the hands of such as he and 
have become as mean and unprincipled as any of 
them. A minister of the gospel, turned politician, 
will show the degrading power of his new associations 
quicker than any other man. There has seemed to be 
an impression in the minds of Christian men that du- 
plicity and trickery are indispensable to a politician, 
and not only necessary, but justifiable. It has been the 
practice to recognize other than a Christian rule of ac- 
tion in political affairs, so that, after a Christian man 
has been in political life sufficiently long, he usually 
wears out his Christianity. It is impossible for a Chris- 
tian to go into political life, and stay there as a party 
man, and join in the operation of party machinery, and 
retain a conscience void of offence. 

How is it with Mr. Jones ? I remember the time 
when he was not only a patriot, but professedly a Chris- 
tian. I remember when he first held office ; and of the 



Jefferson Davis Jones. 247 

Christian patriotism which actuated him in his first 
party strife, I never had a doubt. He worked faithfully 
and well for what he believed to be the right. The self- 
ish crowd with whom he now associates looked upon 
him with approval, because he helped them ; but they 
regarded him as verdant, and knew with measurable 
certainty that his generous zeal would soon find rest in 
calculating selfishness, His term of office expired, and 
he was in want of office again, and then he found him- 
self in the hands of those who, he had already learned, 
were unprincipled. They had called upon him for 
money for party purposes — money which he knew would 
be spent in an unchristian way, and he had given it to 
them. He became aware that they had placed a market 
value on his Christian character, and had calculated on 
the amount that his patriotic unselfishness would add to 
their capital. He learned then to scheme with them. 
He grew unscrupulous in the use of means. He learned 
to regard politics as a game, and he determined to be- 
come a player. It took but a short time for him to be- 
come an adept, and when he had conquered the political 
trade thoroughly, he had become a demoralized man. I 
do not think him a debauchee, or a thief, or a murderer ; 
but he has lost his sincerity, his moral honesty, his 
Christian purpose, and his patriotism. I can hardly 
imagine a character more utterly valueless than his. 
He has come to measuring everything by a party stand- 
ard. He looks upon every public question, every mat- 



248 Concer7iing the Jones Family. 

ter of policy, and every event, as a party man. He 
belongs to that hellish brood of political buzzards who 
cannot hear of a battle, or scent a rumor of war or of 
peace even, without calculating first what party advan- 
tage can be gained from it. 

I suppose that if I were to give utterance to my wishes 
and my aspirations touching the future of my country, I 
should be called Utopian. But that which is possible, 
and that which is desirable on every Christian and patri- 
otic consideration is not Utopian, and I should be for- 
ever ashamed of being scared by the taunt. This coun- 
try is to be saved to freedom and to happiness and to 
justice, if saved at all, by the Christian patriotism of its 
people, and by the institution, in the place of party 
machinery managed by unprincipled men, of some sys- 
tem of popular expression that shall place good men in 
power, and bad men in prison, where they belong. It 
is easy for Mr. Jones and his associates to sneer, — easy 
to say that this is all impracticable, that the people can- 
not possibly prevent him from pulling the wires, and 
that, moreover, he will continue to use the people for 
his own selfish ends, and use them with their consent. 
I say it is not impracticable, because it is in the line of 
Christian and patriotic duty, and is not impossible. I 
say that this change must be made, or we must, as a na- 
tion, be forever going through financial revolutions, so- 
cial convulsions, destructive wars, and all that terrible 
catalogue of national calamities which attend the man- 



Jefferson Davis Jones. 249 

agement of a nation for selfish ends. The Christian and 
patriotic men of this nation must rise, under Christian 
and patriotic leaders, whom they shall choose, and de- 
pose the crew with which Mr. Jones holds association, or 
we must, as a nation, drift along in a state of constant 
social warfare, to land at last in anarchy. A nation that 
is governed by its worst men, who have at command its 
worst elements for that purpose, must go to wreck. 
Only the nation that governs its worst men, and holds 
its worst elements in subjection, can live. Mr. Jones 
and his friends must die, therefore, or the nation must 
die. Which shall it be ? 



DR. BENJAMIN RUSH JONES. 

CONCERNING THE POSITION OF HIMSELF AND HIS 

PROFESSION 

1HAVE abundant reason to hold this gentleman in 
profound and tender respect. His devotion to me in 
sickness, his benevolent self-sacrifice among the poor, 
his sympathy for the young and the weak, his uniform 
kindness and politeness among all classes of people, 
and the Christian spirit and the Christian counsel that 
he has been able to bear through all those scenes of 
suffering among which his life is mainly passed, have 
won my reverent affection. I have never heard him 
utter a coarse word in the presence of a woman, or jest 
with coarse women upon themes with which his profes- 
sion makes him unpleasantly familiar. He is a Chris- 
tian gentleman ; and may God bless him for all the 
comfort and courage which he has borne to a thousand 
beds of suffering and dying, for all the pleasant words 
he has spoken to the tender and the young, and for 
the excellent personal example which, throughout all 
his life of ministry, has made every act an exhortation 



Dr. Benjamin Rush Jones. 251 

to noble endeavor and his presence a constant bene- 
diction. 

I have noticed in my intercourse with him his pro- 
found respect for his profession. He has felt that a 
share of its honor was in his keeping. A light word 
spoken of it has been felt by him as a personal insult. 
He has regarded it with more than the love of a lover; 
he has guarded its honor with more than the sensitive-- 
ness and chivalry of a son. He has believed in it, and 
honestly labored to give it a high place in public esteem. 
This enthusiastic love and admiration of his profession, 
which he has brought down, without abatement, from 
the days of early study, is accompanied by the most de- 
voted fraternal feeling toward his professional brethren. 
He guards their honor jealously, and carries more than 
his share of that esprit de corps which holds together 
the body of physicians of which he is the best mem- 
ber. This love of his profession, and this regard for 
those who practise it, lead him, on all occasions, to 
take sides against the public in such medical disputes or 
contests as may arise, and tempt him into positions 
which compromise his candor and betray his conscience. 
The only place in which he has shown himself to the 
public as a weak man has been in the position of de- 
fender of professional incompetency — a position taken 
simply through an extravagant respect for his profession, 
and an incorrect view of the duty which he owes to its 
practitioners. A professional brother, prosecuted for 



252 Concerning tJie Jones Family. 

malpractice, is always sure that he will do what he can 
to clear him. Any notorious case of incompetent medi- 
cal or surgical management, which the public gets hold 
of, and tosses about, to the disgrace of the profession 
and the physician who is responsible for it, this man 
will always take up and treat tenderly. People have 
learned that he will not patiently hear anything reflect- 
ing on his profession, or those who represent it. This is 
true with relation to what is known in the world as " the 
regular profession." There is a "regular" profession 
and there is an " irregular" profession. I do not know 
that his charities ever extended themselves far enough 
to embrace any member of the medical fraternity who 
was not strictly " regular." If he has been devotedly 
friendly to all who have practised in the regular way, he 
has been uncompromisingly bitter toward all who have 
practised in an irregular way, with or without regular 
diplomas. The only bitterness I ever heard from his 
lips was poured upon the head of some "quack," or 
upon quackery generally. I do not think that he ever, 
for a moment, admitted to himself that an irregular phy- 
sician had cured a case of disease, or could possibly 
prescribe for a case of disease intelligently. He would 
hever admit the most intelligent quack that lives to 
a professional or social equality with himself. He has 
only contempt for the whole brood, and for all who have 
anything to do with them. He cannot take himself so- 
cially away from many whom he calls dupes to quack- 



Dr. Benjamin Rush Jones. 253 

ery, but, in his heart, he partly pities, partly blames, and 
partly despises them all. / 

Now, Dr. Jones is not generally an unreasonable man, 
and I insist on his taking good-naturedly a few things I 
have to say to and about him. I know that he thinks I 
have no right to touch upon a subject like this, but, as 
a representative of the public, I know I have, and I pro- 
pose to do it. Is the profession of medicine, practised 
in the most regular way, by the most regular men, 3o 
nearly perfect in its operations aryd the results as to de- 
serve the enthusiastic respect which he accords to it ? 
Does he find medicine so uniformly successful and so 
reliable in his own hands, with the best regularly ac- 
quired knowledge to guide him in its exhibition, that he 
can have any degree of certainty that he is doing the 
best thing there is to be done ? Is the profession of 
medicine, as it is understood and practised in this coun- 
try, so rich in knowledge that it can afford to shut out of 
itself such truth as may flow to it through irregular chan- 
nels ? Is it so successful in the treatment of disease, 
and so much more successful in the treatment of disease 
than various forms of the irregular practice, that it has 
a right to condemn without exception or qualification the 
irregular practitioner, and call him a quack ? The ar- 
rogance of the position which medical men assume, in 
this and other countries, is an insult to the spirit of the 
age and the intelligence of the people, and has been car- 
ried to the extreme of absolute inhumanity. I have 



254 Concerning the Jones Family. 

known a regular physician approach the victim of an 
accident, and, when his immediate services were need- 
ed, turn away from the wretch without lifting a finger, 
simply because he saw that he should be obliged to 
work in company with an irregular physician. I have 
known a regular physician to go a hundred miles to 
see a patient lying at the gates of death, with a 
dozen hearts ready to break around her, and turn on his 
heel without looking on her, and leave her to die, not 
because he did not find a "regular" physician at her 
bedside, as a regular attendant, but because that regular 
physician did not happen to belong to a certain medical 
society ! 

I repeat that Dr. Jones is not generally unreasonable, 
and I should like to know what he thinks of this. I 
could multiply instances like these that I have given 
him ; and what do they prove ? To my mind they prove 
simply that esprit de corps in his profession has degene- 
rated into contemptible clannishness and partisanship. 
I doubt whether he would decidedly condemn the acts 
to which I have alluded, and have little question that he 
would be guilty of similar ones on occasion. He and 
his professional brethren act as if they believe that they 
hold the exclusive right to administer medicine and get 
pay for it, as if they possess exclusively all medical 
knowledge worth possessing, and as if they mean to 
maintain their rights against all disputants, by any avail- 
able means. They are not alone a mutual admiration 



Dr. Benjamin Rush Jones. 255 

society : they are a mutual insurance company ; they 
mean to lord it medically over the community, and over 
each other. No man of the profession can step outside 
of the regular field to experiment and prosecute inquiries 
without having his heels tripped from under him. Every 
man must toe the regular crack, or he is at once socially 
and professionally proscribed. Now I confess that this 
is spirited and positive treatment, but it strikes me to 
be out of keeping with the times, and inconsistent with 
the good of the public. Moreover, what he calls quackery 
and the patronage of quackery, thrive on this treatment. 
The freely thinking and independent men of his profes- 
sion leave him, disgusted, and the people rebel. 

Why should Dr. Jones and his associates set up for 
exclusive possessors of medical wisdom ? They know 
very well that all medicine is empiricism, and that medi- 
cine has made advances only by empiricism. Their 
true policy is to take into their hands, and honestly and 
faithfully try, all those remedies which have received 
the endorsement of any considerable number of intelli- 
gent men. Their duty is to have their eyes constantly 
open for improvement, and to take it when and where 
they can get it. Almost every system of quackery under 
heaven has been found to have in it some good — some 
basis of truth — some valuable power or principle — which 
it has always been the business of the regular profession 
to seek out and incorporate into their system. No man 
of sense believes in universal remedies ; but because a 



256 Concerning the Jones Family. 

remedy is not universal it is not, therefore, valueless. 
Cold water cannot cure every ill that flesh is heir to, 
but the fact that it can cure a great many of them is just 
as well established as any fact in natural philosophy. 
The regular profession, however, will not use cold water, 
because cold water is used by quacks, and because cold 
water is claimed by some quacks to be a universal rem- 
edy. Preissnitz was a quack — regarded and treated by 
the medical profession as a quack — but the world has 
recognized him as a philosopher and a benefactor, and 
after the prejudices against him shall have been out- 
lived, that which he has done for medicine will slowly, 
and under protest, be adopted into regular practice. 

Dr. Jones and his professional brethren have a very 
hearty contempt for homoeopathy, but homoeopathy is 
to do him and his friends good, in spite of themselves. 
No man of sense believes that allopathy is all wrong 
and homoeopathy is all right, but a man must be an idiot 
to suppose that a system of medicine which has won to 
itself large numbers of skilful men from the regular pro- 
fession, and secured the approval, when compared di- 
rectly with the regular practice, of as intelligent people 
as can be found in this or any other country, has nothing 
of good in it. For them — without experiment, without 
observation, without careful study — to call homoeopathy 
a system of unmitigated quackery, and to hold those in 
contempt who practise and patronize it, is a piece of the 
most childish arrogance. This is neither the way of 



Dr. Benjamin Rush Jones. 257 

true science nor liberal culture. They may be measur- 
ably certain that there is something in homoeopathy 
worthy, not only of their examination, but of incorpora- 
tion into their system of practice. It has already modi- 
fied their practice while they have been talking and act- 
ing against it. They are not exhibiting to-day a third as 
much medicine as they did before homoeopathy made its 
appearance. It has killed the old system of large dosing, 
forever. This is a fact ; and what they call " no medi- 
cine at all " has at least shown itself to be better than 
too much medicine, even when administered in the regu- 
lar way. They say that a homoeopathic dose cannot 
affect the human constitution, in any appreciable degree. 
A million men and women stand ready to-day to swear 
that, according to their honest belief and best knowl- 
edge, they have themselves been sensibly affected by 
homoeopathic doses, and that, on the whole, they prefer 
homoeopathic to allopathic practice in their families, 
judging from a long series of results. 

Now, what is the regular profession going to do with 
facts like these ? They cannot dismiss them with a con- 
temptuous paragraph, and a wave of the hand, and 
maintain their reputation as candid men. If they are 
free men, and not under bondage to the most contempti- 
ble old fogyism that the world ever gave birth to, they 
will act as free men. They will permit no man to limit 
their field of experiment and inquiry, and allow no 
society or clique to prevent them from extending medi- 



258 Concerning the Jones Family. 

cal science over all the facts of medical science, wherever 
they may find them. I am a champion of no one of the 
thousand Apathies" that occupy the field of irregular 
practice, and I have alluded to two of them only because 
they are prominent. I speak of Dr. Jones simply as a 
searcher after truth ; and I declare my belief that the 
profession to which he belongs has failed to keep pace 
with other professions — that medical science has lagged 
behind all the other sciences of equal importance to 
mankind — simply because it would not accept truth 
when it has been associated with the error and the pre- 
tension that is so apt to accompany the advent of truth 
in every field. The science of medicine embraces, or 
should embrace, all the facts of medicine, and when he 
or his friends proudly decline to entertain a fact because 
it was discovered by an irregular empiric, they are not 
only false to science but false to humanity. 

Dr. Jones cannot help but notice a growing tendency 
in the public mind to break away from the regular prac- 
tice, and to embrace some of the numberless forms of 
irregular practice. He notices this with pain, and so do 
I, because I know that if the regular profession were to 
pursue a different policy, the fact would be otherwise. 
He must notice with peculiar pain that this defection is 
not confined to the ignorant and the superstitious, and 
that, more and more, it takes from him the intelligent 
and the learned.' Why will he be so stupid as not to 
see that this waning of respect for the regular practice is 



Dr. Benjamin Rush Jones. 259 

owing to the bigotry and intolerance of the regular prac- 
titioners ? He assumes to be the sole possessor of the 
medical wisdom of the world. Every man who does not 
practise in his way, though he may have been a graduate 
of a regular medical college, he assumes the privilege of 
condemning as a quack ; and he denies to him not only 
professional but social position. He places all matters 
of social and professional etiquette before the simplest 
humanities, and intends by his policy to coerce the 
public into his support. The rules of his medical asso- 
ciations are intended to hold their members to the regu- 
lar field, to compel them to fight all irregular practition- 
ers out of the field, and to force the public into the 
exclusive support of the regular practice. It is a thor- 
ough despotism, and intended to be so ; and is so dis- 
cordant with the free spirit of the time that the public 
rebel and many are driven into extremes of opposition. 

Does he ask me if I am a medical " Eclectic ? " No ; 
I am nothing of the kind. I am a catholic, with every 
prejudice, predilection, and sympathy of my mind cling- 
ing to the regular practice. I have a contempt which I 
cannot utter for all these "completed systems" of ir- 
regular practice, which are built upon some newly dis- 
covered or newly developed fact in medicine. I have 
only contempt for the broad claims of quackery in every 
field. When a man tells me that the regular practice is 
murder, and that drugs are never administered in allo- 
pathic doses with benefit, I know simply that he is a 



260 Concerning the Jones Family. 

fool. And when an adherent of the allopathic school 
tells me that such and such things cannot be, in the 
range of irregular practice, which I know have been and 
are, I know he is a fool. 

I write in my present strain to him, because I believe 
that through what is called the regular practice the fu- 
ture substantial advances of medicine are to be made. 
Medical science can only go about as fast as the regular 
profession permits it to go. It is too well organized, it 
has too many schools, it has too much power, to permit 
any outside organization to get the lead, and to become 
the standard authority of the world. My doctrine is 
that the regular profession should become the solvent of 
all the systems, and not the uniform and bitter opponent 
of everything that claims to be a system. They should 
make their system one with universal science, one with 
humanity, and not build a wall around it. When a man 
gets so bigoted that he can say that a thing cannot be 
true because it is not according to his system, he has be- 
come too narrow for the intelligent practice of any pro- 
fession. 

The church is getting ahead of the medical profession 
very decidedly. It is but a few years ago that Christians 
of different sects had just as little toleration for each 
other as the different sects of medical men have now. 
There was one of these sects that was " the regular 
thing," and those who departed from it were made to 
suffer socially. It was in this country, in a degree, as it 



Dr. Benjamin Rush Jones. 261 

is in England now. There is the established church — ■ 
the recognized church — and all the Protestants outside 
of it are independents. These independents are looked 
down upon socially, and regarded with a contempt quite 
as profound as that which the medical profession feels 
for " quacks" and their " dupes ; " yet it is coming to be 
understood in England that the substantial Christian 
progress of the time is being made by the despised inde- 
pendents, and it is felt that by their influence they are 
working a revolution in the established church which 
will, at no distant day, give to it a new vitality and a 
fresh impetus. Dr. Jones may fight this revolution in 
medicine, but it is coming, and when it shall -come, he 
will find that what he calls quackery will fall before it. 

He, possibly, supposes that there are no intelligent 
and scientific men engaged in irregular medical prac- 
tice. If there are not, it is the fault of his own schools, 
for they have been educated in them by thousands ; and 
the practical point at which I aim is this : that he and 
they shall meet as scientific men, and that as scientific 
men he and they shall reveal the results of experiment 
and inquiry in their various fields of observation. I 
would have him win from them what they have learned. 
I would have him and them do this in behalf of medical 
science, and in the interest of humanity. Until they 
become willing to do this they must occupy the position 
of despots and bigots — a position which no profession, 
with science in one hand and humanity in the other, can 



262 Concerning the Jones Family. 

afford to occupy. At present they are creating quack- 
ery and stimulating quacks at a rate which no other 
policy could possibly effect. The means which they 
and their professional brethren are employing to keep 
the medical practice of the country in their hands, are 
certainly working to defeat their object. They must be 
more catholic and more tolerant, or their profession, 
and every human being interested in it, must suffer a 
range of evil consequences which I cannot measure. 
The position which they assume of holding a monopoly 
of all the medical wisdom, all the medical science, all 
the power of intelligent observation of disease, is a 
standing insult to the age, and is certain to be pun- 
ished. 

I am aware that I am quite likely to be misunderstood 
and misconstrued by Dr. Jones, and by those of his 
professional brethren who may read this paper. They 
have been so much in the habit of calling all irregular 
practitioners quacks and charlatans and mountebanks — 
of looking upon them all as either ignorant or knavish, 
or both together, that they will be quite apt to charge 
me with favoring charlatanry and quackery. I ask them 
to associate with no knave or ignorant pretender. No 
man can more heartily despise a pretender in medicine 
than I do, either in or out of the regular profession ; and 
I am sure that the question is yet to be decided as to 
which side holds the preponderance of ignorance and 
pretension. As between licensed and unlicensed igno- 






Dr. Benjamin Rush Jones. 263 

ranee and pretension, I have no choice. I simply ask 
the profession to admit the fact that there are just as 
good, true, scientific, honorable, and able men outside of 
the regular profession as there are in it ; that all improve- 
ments in medicine must come through empiricism; that 
medical science is one in its interests, aims, and ends ; 
and that the people have a right to demand that the 
profession which has its most precious interests in 
charge shall not place before those interests its own par- 
tisan purposes and prejudices. I wish Dr. Jones to see 
how utterly unworthy of him, personally, his professional 
bigotry is, and to induce him to do for his profession 
what he is so ready to do in all the popular fields of re- 
form. 



DIOGENES JONES. 

CONCERNING HIS DISPOSITION TO A VOID SOCIETY. 

1 SOMETIMES think that I am the only person who 
understands and appreciates this member of the 
Jones family ; and the fact I take to be flattering to my 
discrimination, for all the fools believe him to be a fool. 
There are comparatively few who know that behind his 
impassive spectacles there are eyes full of kindliness 
and intelligence, and that his shy manner and reticent 
mood cover a heart that longs for love and a wealth of 
conscious intellectual power that would rejoice in recog- 
nition. Few care to study him, but everybody wonders 
why he shuns society. Few go toward him, because he 
goes toward nobody. I never should have known him 
if I had not, by pure force of will, penetrated the armor 
of cool indifference in which he has encased himself. I 
was determined to find him, and I found him. I was 
not surprised to discover in him the average amount of 
humanity in its common powers and properties, and 
more than the average amount of sensitiveness and gen- 
tleness. So soon as he saw that I understood him, he 






Diogenes Jones. 265 

surrendered himself to me gladly, and we held commu- 
nion with one another, heart to heart. 

The first cause that operated to make him a solitary 
man was a sense of his incongruity with the elements of 
society, or with the elements of such society as were 
around him. He looked upon the young, and saw them 
absorbed by frivolities that had no charm for him — en- 
gaged in pursuits which did not interest him. There 
was but little animal life in him, and no overflow of ani- 
mal spirits — so he had none of the spirit of play ; and 
he could take no pleasure in the insignificant things 
with which the spirit of play interested itself. When- 
ever he was thrown among those of his own years, he 
entered scenes that had no meaning to him, so that he 
was always oppressed with the feeling that he was out 
of place. He knew that his companions interfered with 
his pleasure, and naturally thought that he interfered 
with theirs, forgetting that they were thoughtless while 
he was thoughtful. 

This consciousness of incongruity could not long be 

entertained in his sensitive nature without very serious 

self-questionings. He began to ask himself why it was 

that he was an exception to the rule that prevailed 

around him ; and the more he questioned himself, the 

more sensitive he became, until there was not a feature 

of his face, or a part of his frame, or a peculiarity of his 

speech and personal bearing, that was not inquired of 

concerning the matter. The result was an impulse to 
12 



266 Co7iceming the Jones Family. 

hide himself from observation, and great reluctance to 
enter the society to which his life naturally introduced 
him. His consciousness that there was something pe- 
culiar in his temperament was a hinderance to him — it 
made him awkward and stiff. While he felt himself to 
be the possessor of more brains and more knowledge 
than the most of the young men around him, he des- 
paired of appearing to know anything. He had not the 
secret of self-possession and confident bearing. Many 
were the struggles with himself, but at length he became 
habitually a solitary man. He lost the small measure 
of confidence which nature originally gave him, lost his 
familiarity with the forms of social intercourse — almost 
lost himself. He could not bear to be looked at or 
spoken to. He retired into himself, and sought in self- 
communion or in studious pursuits for the satisfaction 
which his nature craved. 

I have already suggested the character of that poverty 
of constitution which has made him what he is. He is 
not a thoroughly healthy man. Either he is very weak 
naturally, with no overflow of animal life, or, by heavy 
draughts upon his nervous system, he has expended 
that life. Work, or study, or both together, have ex- 
hausted his stock of vitality, so that he has only just 
enough for the necessary uses of life. Until men and 
women rise to a degree of cultivation which few reach, 
it is not to be denied that social life is made up of or is 
carried on by the aggregate overflow of the animal life 



Diogenes Jones. 267 

of society. It may be a humiliating consideration, but 
it is true, that where there is none of the spirit of play 
there is no social life that is worth the name. Youth is 
generally social because it is playful ; and, as youth 
goes on to middle life and old age, it generally becomes 
less social because it becomes less playful. Playfulness 
is the offspring of animal spirits. There are some men 
and women who bubble throughout their whole lives 
with this overflow, and are always cheerful and charm- 
ing companions. There are others who either never 
have it, or who lose it by expenditure of work or study, 
and who, as a consequence, become taciturn and unso- 
cial. Lambs in a pasture will run races in delightful 
groups, and frolic by the hour ; but the dams that nurse 
them, and seek all day among the rocks for food, mani- 
fest no sympathy with them. In a healthy constitution, 
put to healthy work, there seems to be a stock of animal 
life and spirits sufficient for the individual, and a super- 
abundant amount which is intended for social purposes. 
We may look the world over, and we shall find that all 
men and all races of men in whom this overflow of ani- 
mal life is characteristic are social ; and that all men 
and races of men not characterized by this overflow are 
unsocial. 

Overflowing animal spirits form the stream on which 
the social life of the world floats. If other evidences of 
the fact were needed than that which lies upon the sur- 
face, it might be found in the efforts to produce an arti- 



268 Concerning the Jones Family. 

ficial overflow at convivial parties. A company of 
weary men sit down and pass the evening together over 
a supper. They come together for the simple purpose 
of enjoying a gay and social time. They know very well 
that, independent of the contents of certain bottles, they 
have no power of social enjoyment of the kind they seek. 
They wish to bring back the hilarity of youth, the care- 
lessness of youth, the overflowing joyousness of youth ; 
but this they cannot do, because their animal life is ex- 
pended. So they get up the best imitation they can of 
the departed motive power, and a very sorry one it is. 
When the artificial stimulant has worked its work, the 
company is social enough, and hilarious enough, after a 
fashion, but the fashion is a disastrous one. It will an- 
swer, however, as a proof of the proposition that in over- 
flowing animal spirits is to be found the medium of so- 
cial intercourse — the menstruum of alf social materials. 
Even when social life starts from a higher source — from 
the overflow of intellectual life— it is greatly assisted by 
animal spirits, and those men and women in whom 
there is an overflow of both animal and intellectual life 
are, socially, the most valuable and attractive that the 
world contains. 

Mr. Diogenes Jones must have noticed how much ani- 
mal spirits will do in making a man — very inconsequen- 
tial otherwise — socially valuable. He must remember 
young men and women with ordinary powers of intellect, 
and not more than ordinary personal attractions, who 



Diogenes Jones. 269 

were deemed the life of the party they entered, simply 
because they had an overflow of animal spirits. If they 
were awkward, nobody minded it — least of all did they 
care for it. They brought society a vessel full of life, 
and society was grateful for it. Mr. Jones took into this 
same society, perhaps, a mind well stored with learning, 
and natural gifts superior to any, yet the empty pates 
amused everybody and furnished the means and me- 
dium of social communion while he sat with his tongue 
tied, or retired in disgust. Now let him imagine him- 
self to be possessed of the abounding animal life which 
distinguishes some of his acquaintances, united with the 
intellectual power and culture which distinguish himself, 
and it will be easy to see that nothing could restrain 
him from society. The overflowing man must play, and 
he will always seek somebody to play with. If he does 
not understand the conventionalities of society and the 
forms and the manners of social intercourse, he will 
good-naturedly blunder over them. He will be social, 
because he must expend that which is in him in play. 

I am aware that Mr. Jones' case is not like all those 
which result in self-exclusion from society, but I believe 
that no case of such self-exclusion can be found in any 
man who possesses a healthy overflow of animal spirits. 
I find the disposition to shun society exists very widely 
among students and studious men. I believe it is the 
truth, that most authors and writers avoid society, or 
feel decidedly disinclined to it. Men who thus confine 



270 Concerning the Jones Family. 

themselves within doors, and exhaust their nervous en- 
ergy in thought and composition, and with no vigor from 
the open air, are necessarily without an overflow of ani- 
mal spirits ; and they will find themselves disinclined to 
society exactly in proportion to their sense of exhaust- 
ion. Not unfrequently young women who have been dis- 
tinguished for their love of society and their adaptedness 
to it, lose both on becoming mothers of families, and 
never enter society again as active members. So it 
seems that just as soon as the animal life sinks below a 
certain level, the disposition to play naturally ceases, and 
the motive to enter society dies. 

I am now asked for the remedy. I am asked a hard 
question, and yet I believe there is an answer to it, 
though a fresh and overflowing supply of animal life is 
not to be had by the asking. Undoubtedly something 
can be done by attending to the conditions of a vigorous 
animal life. Undoubtedly a life in the open air among 
men would work a great change in Mr. Jones, but cir- 
cumstances will not permit this, perhaps, and he seeks 
for the next best course. 

I have said that overflowing animal spirits form the 
stream on which the social life of the world floats. To 
extend the figure, I may say that on this stream some 
row while others ride, and the relative proportion of 
rowers and riders does not vary essentially from that 
which prevails on more material streams. The rowers 
are in the minority — the riders are in the majority, and 



Diogenes Jones. 271 

if he cannot row he must be content to ride, for it is es- 
sential to his spiritual health that he enjoy the air and 
sunlight and change which only the passengers upon 
this stream can win. If he possesses no superabund- 
ance of animal life, he must be content to breathe the 
atmosphere furnished by others. He may not be much 
interested in general society, and society may not be 
much interested in him at first, but I am sure that if he 
enters it and remains in it, he will not fail to discover 
points of sympathy between himself and others from 
which refreshing and enriching influences will be re- 
ceived by him. Society will take him away from his 
books and break up his reveries, and that is precisely 
what is needed. He needs to be drawn out from him- 
self, and made to contribute something to the life and 
wealth of others. 

If directly entering general society seems too difficult 
or too distasteful, there are various indirect methods of 
entering it which are entirely practicable, and which 
need not be disagreeable. Let him enter some field of 
charitable effort or public enterprise. Whenever a man 
undertakes any effort for the good of the public, whether 
in the broad field of Christian charity, or the equally 
broad field of public improvement, he at once comes 
into sympathy with a certain number of men and women 
who give him a cordial welcome. It is only a point of 
sympathy that is needed to make him feel at home in 
society. Society may be very attractive to him, though 



272 Concerning the Jones Family. 

he has but little power to contribute to its life, provided 
only that he finds in it those with whom he has been 
thrown into sympathy. Let him think of the effect upon 
his mind of meeting at the bedside of some sad sufferer, 
or in some hovel of the poor, a man on the same errand 
of mercy that took him there. He knows that he would 
feel immediately the formation of a tie of sympathy be- 
tween himself and this man — would feel that he had 
reached his heart, that the latter had found his, and that 
thenceforward they could meet with mutual esteem. 
Think of the effect of laboring side by side with men 
and women in any work of Christian reform, or public 
education, or literary culture. All work of this charac- 
ter, pursued in the company of others, establishes sym- 
pathy between the co-workers, and he has only to engage 
in it to weave around himself a net of social attractions 
that must gradually draw him out from himself. 

He must contrive some scheme for meeting society 
half-way. He is unlike most men who shun society, 
if he does not feel that it does not quite do its duty to 
him in not coming after him. He retires into himself, 
he takes no pains to show that he possesses the slightest 
social value, he does not even exhibit that interest in 
humanity generally, or in the community in which he 
lives, that leads him to efforts on their behalf, yet, some- 
how, he feels that society ought to find him out, and 
make itself agreeable and valuable to him. He may 
rest assured that society will never do any such thing. 



Diogenes Jones. 273 

I know that he has no native impulse to social commu- 
nion ; that the spirit of play about which I have talked 
is gone out of him, even if he has ever possessed it ; but 
that which most men do by impulse or natural desire, 
he must do by direct purpose, and as a matter of duty. 
And he must do this at once. The penalty of failure is 
the gradual dwarfing of himself and the sacrifice of all 
power to influence others. He has a laudable desire to 
be something and to do something in the world, and 
knows that he has within him the ability necessary to 
accomplish his purposes, but without social sympathy 
he will never know what to do or how to do for the 
world, and the world will find it impossible to under- 
stand and receive him. 
12* 



SAUL M. JONES. 

CONCERNING HIS HABIT OF LOOKING UPON THE 
DARK SIDE OF THINGS. 

1 SUPPOSE Mr. Saul M. Jones imagines that I am 
about to endeavor to prove to him that there is no 
dark side to the things of this life, or none worth his at- 
tention. He is mistaken. There is a dark side to every 
man's life, and to the world's life, which I do not think it 
either possible or desirable to ignore — a dark side, that 
is legitimately the subject of melancholy contemplation. 
We live in a world of want and disease, of sin and sor- 
row, of disaster and death. Our souls, that think and 
feel, that fear and hope, that despair and aspire, are as- 
sociated with bodies which are subject to debasing appe- 
tites, to derangement, to decay, to a thousand modes of 
suffering incident to animal life. No mind of ordinary 
sensibility can look upon, or ought to look upon, the 
evils which throng the path of humanity without deep 
sadness. No man of humane instincts can realize, even 
in an imperfect and faint degree, how the earth seethes 
with corruption, and moral evil vies with physical disor- 



Saul M. Jones. 275 

ganization and decay in the work of darkness and de- 
struction, without emotions of mingled sorrow and horror 
— emotions that cannot be relieved by the encouraging 
reflection that the future promises an early dissipation 
of the cloud that overshadows the world. 

There are several reasons, however, why neither he 
nor any person should dwell constantly upon the evil 
that is in the world. The principal one is that no one 
can regard it perpetually, with anything like a realizing 
comprehension of that which he contemplates, without 
morbid depression or absolute insanity. A man's duty 
to humanity, no less than his duty to himself, demands 
that he shall not depress his vital tone and weaken his 
courage by the contemplation of evils for which he is not 
responsible, and for the cure or relief of which he needs 
all the strength he possesses, or will find it possible to 
win. I suppose the angels of heaven, with their quick 
sympathies, might make themselves most unhappy over 
the woes of the world, and fill their holy dwelling-place 
with lamentations, but I do not believe they do, or that 
they ought to. The woes of the world are not put upon 
one man's shoulders, and though we may feel them 
keenly, we have no moral right to permit them to affect 
us further than to make our hearts tender in sympathy, 
and our hands active in ministry. If dwelling upon the 
woes of others had power in it to do them good, there 
would be excuse for it, but it is the idlest of all painful 
indulgences. No one is benefited by it, while one's own 



276 Concerning the Jones Family. 

misery, thus awakened, is added to that which awakes 
it, and the world is only the more miserable for his mis- 
ery. Thus his dejection would not only be harmful to 
himself, but useless to the world. It would be a gratui- 
tous addition to the aggregate of human woe, and would 
widen the field of misery for other eyes. 

But these remarks have comparatively little practical 
application to Mr. Jones, or to others prone, like him, to 
look on the dark side of things. The men and women 
are few who are permanently depressed by the habitual 
contemplation of woes that do not personally concern 
themselves. I have heard of a person driven hopelessly 
insane by a contemplation of the destiny of wicked men, 
and of others whose horror over human condition has 
plunged them into atheism, or some other dark form of 
unbelief ; but these are rare cases. Almost all cases of 
permanent dejection, and of habitual refuge in shadows, 
are the result of personal trials, of personal peculiarities. 
Various causes have contributed to make Mr. Jones a 
dejected man. I think there is a natural lack of hope- 
fulness in his constitution. There are great differences 
among men in this matter. Some, with naturally hope- 
ful spirits, live through a hard life, and see many bitter 
days, yet preserve their buoyancy and their hopefulness 
to the last. Others, with a comparatively easy life and 
surrounded by pleasant circumstances, will grow sadder 
and sadder until they sink into the grave. Natural tem- 
perament is all-powerful to make some desponding 



Saul M. Jones. 277 

under all circumstances, and others cheerful under any 
circumstances. Something of Mr. Jones' condition is 
due, I do not doubt, to this native deficiency, though I 
do not think this deficiency so great as to be the respon- 
sible cause of his calamity. 

Disease is not unfrequently the cause of much of the 
permanent dejection that afflicts mankind. Hypochon- 
dria is not uncommon, and this is a genuine disease that 
comes under the cognizance and treatment of the physi- 
cians as legitimately as rheumatism or any other dis- 
ease. And there may exist a general depression of the 
vital energies in consequence of age, or the disease of 
some of the organs concerned in digestion whose legiti- 
mate result is depression of spirits. I cannot tell how 
much this man's depression is attributable to causes of 
this character, but I do not doubt that disease has its 
place among the causes. Still, neither natural tempera- 
ment nor disease has worked this work alone. They 
have done something in furnishing favorable conditions 
for the operations of other causes, without being very 
active themselves. I have never been able to find in 
his lack of hopefulness, or in any disease that has been 
permanently upon him, the reason for that disposition 
to look upon the dark side of things which has become 
the habit of his life. He is probably not aware of this 
habit. He is probably not aware that he never utters a 
hearty laugh, that he never confesses to a moment of 
genuine enjoyment, that he is never willing to acknowl- 



278 Concerning the Jones Family. 

edge that there is anything encouraging in his life and 
lot, that he has for years persistently believed his health 
to be in a failing condition, that he utterly refuses to 
admit that there is any palliation of his misery in any 
event that affects him. His friends are aware that he is 
in very comfortable circumstances, that not a want is 
unsupplied, that love surrounds him with its tireless 
ministries, and that, somehow, life has many charms for 
him ; but he wonders at their perverseness, or attempts 
in various ways to convince them of their mistake. 

I have spoken of his dejection as a habit, and I think 
it is one which a sufficient power and effort of will can 
break up. I do not know, indeed, but he has lost this 
power of will in a measure, but I cannot think that it is 
entirely gone. He seems to have plenty of reason and a 
sufficiency of will with relation to other subjects; and 
if he could have the disposition to apply both to this, he 
could break up his unhappy habit, I do not doubt. He 
has a habit of watchfulness against evil, as if he did not 
intend that Providence should ever catch him napping. 
He guards himself equally against joy, as if afraid of 
being happier than he has any right to be. For many 
years, he has kept a lookout for death, determined not 
to be taken when off guard. This watchfulness against 
evil and against joy has been maintained till it has be- 
come the habit of his life, and made him a miserable 
slave. 

Far be it from me to deny that he has suffered se- 



Saul M. Jones. 279 

verely by sickness, by early struggles with poverty, and 
by the loss of those who were near and dear to him. 
Indeed, the blows of Providence have been neither few 
nor lightly inflicted ; but they have been blows for which 
a kind Father has provided abundant balm. No shame 
has befallen him ; no dishonor has come to him ; noth- 
ing has happened to him strange to the lot of the hun- 
dreds of cheerful men whom he meets. I do not doubt 
that these blows bent him as grief always bends, but 
there was no sufficient reason for their breaking him. 
They were not the expression of infinite displeasure, 
and were not intended to fill his life with gloom. Nay, 
he professes to believe that all these precious lost ones 
of his are in heaven, and that soon he shall meet them 
there. I think he is thoroughly honest in his belief, and 
that even his griefs cannot be held accountable for his 
habit of looking upon the dark side of things, and his 
persistent discontent. 

I look farther back than grief for the causes of his 
sadness and deeper than disease. I believe that the 
real and responsible cause of his dejection is the relig- 
ious training of his early life, and the ideas which he 
now entertains of God and of duty. God has never 
been to him an infinitely affectionate Father, to whom 
he has been willing to give himself up in perfect trust. 
I do not question the honesty of his reverence for Him, 
or the purity of his worship of Him, but his fear of Him 
is of such a nature that he seems always afraid that He 



280 Concerning the Jones Family. 

will play him some trick — that He will call for him be- 
fore he is ready, or that He only bears a joy to his lips 
in order, for some disciplinary purpose, to dash it away. 
He does not, like a child, trust Him — give himself and 
all his hopes and all his life up to Him. He has no ease 
in Him — no peace in Him. He is on the constant watch 
for himself, seeking to fathom or foresee His designs 
concerning himself, and bearing, with his poor, weak 
hands, the burden which only He can carry without toil. 
God, the judge — God, the ruler — God, the providential 
dispenser — that is his God ; but God, the everlasting 
Father, full of all tender pity and compassion, wooing 
him to His arms, asking him to repose upon His bosom 
and give up to Him all his griefs, and trust Him for all 
the future, is a strange God to him. Ah ! I am more 
sorry for him in this great mistake and misfortune than 
my words can tell. 

I think he has always felt that it is wrong to be cheer- 
ful. His religion has been a joyless one. He received 
in early life, I cannot doubt, the impression that no per- 
son realizing the brevity of life, the tremendous realities 
of eternity, the consequences of sin and the necessity 
for constant preparation for death, and the readiness for 
every affliction, could possibly be cheerful. Naturally 
reverent and constitutionally timid, this kind of teach- 
ing planted itself so deeply in his spirit that a better 
doctrine, assisted by his own reason, has never uprooted 
it. To him the most cheerful peal of bells comes only 



Saul M. Jones. 281 

with suggestions of the grave, and the touch of a baby's 
hand upon his cheek reminds him only of its frailty and 
its doom. The earth has been literally a vale of tears 
to him. As he has seen the young overflowing with life 
and joy, and dancing along a flowery pathway, he has 
sighed over them with an ineffable pity. He has never 
dared to set his affections upon anything for fear that it 
would be taken away from him, or that, in some way, it 
would become a curse to him. He has looked upon life 
simply as a period of discipline preparatory to a better 
life, whose joyfulness must necessarily be in the ratio of 
the joylessness of that which precedes it. Life has ap- 
peared to him to be only a preparation for death, and 
religion has been only something to die by. 

Now I am very much mistaken if it be not one of 
the special offices of Christianity to release those who, 
through fear of death, have all their life been subject to 
bondage — to make the future so clear and attractive 
that it shall fill the present with joyful content. I know 
that we are directed to be ready for death when it shall 
come ; but how can a man be readier than when en- 
gaged actively in pushing on the great work of the 
world, and enjoying all the satisfaction that must natur- 
ally flow from the consciousness of a future forever se- 
cure ? 

If his idea and his policy were to become prevalent in 
the world, the world would certainly become more 
thoroughly a vale of tears than it ever has been — more 



282 Concerning the Jones Family. 

than he imagines it to be. Such prevalence would be 
universal paralysis. God is not interested exclusively, 
I imagine, with the small concerns of individuals like 
himself. He watches the life of nations and the rise 
and growth of civilization. One generation lays the cor- 
ner-stone of the state, and a hundred generations rear 
the superstructure, and numberless lives are swallowed 
up in the process. Lives and destinies overlap each 
other, and one continues what another begins. The 
thread of silk is not cut off because a single cocoon is 
exhausted. The single cocoon is not missed, and if it 
were, there are a hundred to take its place. Men do 
not live to themselves alone — do not live with reference 
alone to that which, in the providence of God, may per- 
sonally befall them. There is a family, there is a pos- 
terity, there is a country, there is a world to live for ; 
there are great enterprises to be engaged in which con-* 
suit no period of suspension short of the national death 
or the final consummation of all things. 

What headway does Mr. Jones think would be made 
in the world's educational and reformatory work by men 
who, like him, think there is not much use in undertak- 
ing anything because death is so very near ? Let him 
judge for himself. Is he an active man in any of the 
great Christian and humane movements of the time ? 
Does he ever dream of putting his shoulder to the wheel 
of progress ? No. He is the subject of mental and 
spiritual paralysis ; and if the world were made up of 



Saul M. Jones. \ 283 

such as he, it would come to a dead halt. He has lived 
in his old house until it is tumbling down about his 
head, because it has seemed as if anything like perma- 
nent repair of it would tempt Providence to take him 
away from it altogether. He could tear the old house 
down and build anew, but life seems so short and death 
so near, that even the suggestion of such an enterprise 
has appeared impious. He has thought only of him 
who proposed to pull down his barns and build greater, 
and of the end that came before the barns were begun. 
The new garments which he puts on are adopted with 
the sad reflection that he shall probably never live to 
wear them out, and every chastened pleasure which he 
puts fearfully to his lips is loaded with the thought that 
he has possibly tasted it for the last time. 

What kind of a Christianity does he think this is to 
commend to a careless world? There can be no ques- 
tion as to the relative comfort and happiness of the 
worldling and himself. The careless worldling, so that 
he has no vice that burns his conscience, is a happier 
man than Mr. Jones ; and if he be a man of active, 
benevolent impulses, he is a more useful member of 
society. This continual thoaghtfulness touching him- 
self, this constant carefulness of himself, this perpetual 
watching of events with relation to their bearing upon 
himself, cannot fail to make him selfish, or rather can- 
not fail to shut out the thought of others and of the 
great interest of the world at large. 



284 Concerning the Jones Family. 

I count that man supremely happy who, prepared in 
his heart for every emergency and every event, has 
given himself in perfect trust to the Great Disposer, and 
addressed himself with a glad heart to the work and the 
enjoyment of the present life. Such a man makes no 
calculation for misfortune and watches not for death, but 
does that which his hand finds to do, knowing that if he 
does not enjoy the fruit of his labor, others will, and is 
content to take the ills of life when they come. Such a 
man sees woe, only to do what he can to alleviate it. 
There is light in his eye, there is life in his step. To me 
he is the pattern Christian of the world. The bright side 
of things is with him so bright that its radiance quite 
overpowers the darkness of the other side. He is cheer- 
ful because he is free. Is it too late for our friend to be 
relieved of this load of fear and carefulness and appre- 
hension ? I think not. I believe that this habit of his 
life can be broken, and that many happy days can yet 
be his — days of calm joy, undarkened by a single care 
or cloud, days of heavenly hope and trust, and days 
of earnest, far-reaching work. 



JOHN SMITH JONES. 

CONCERNING HIS NEIGHBORLY DUTIES AND HIS 
FAILURE TO PERFORM THEM. 

NEXT to being a good husband and father, I con- 
sider it every man's duty to be a good neighbor. 
A good neighbor ! My heart brims with gratitude as I 
write the phrase, for memory, by her magic call, sum- 
mons to their places along the track of the past, a line of 
ministers of good to me in a thousand ways through 
neighborly kindness. Among this long line of good 
neighbors, all of whom I remember with grateful de- 
light, there were some in whom the neighborly instinct 
was as distinct and characteristic and original as the 
parental instinct, or the religious sentiment. Neighborly 
kindness has hitherto been regarded as the offspring of 
a benevolent disposition, but such a theory degrades it. 
It is a distinct growth from a separate seed, and often 
thrives in people who are not remarkable for general 
benevolence. When unhindered and thrifty, it is in some 
natures the distinguishing characteristic. 

Before I come to the treatment of the case of Mr. John 



286 Concerning the Jones Family. 

Smith Jones, I regard it as a neighborly duty to pay trib- 
ute to some of those good neighbors whose deeds are 
forever embalmed in my heart. To that hearty, loving 
woman who used to flit backward and forward between 
her humble house and my childhood's home, lending 
more than she borrowed, and always returning more, 
bringing in tidbits of her cooking to me, always sharing 
her luxuries with the hand that cared for me, watching 
with us all in sickness, and always declaring that she 
had done nothing at all, and was, on the whole, ashamed 
of the unworthiness and insignificance of her offices, my 
tearful thanks ! Though for many years she has walked 
in white upon the heavenly hills, I hope it is not too late 
to tell her that the man does not forget her pleasant 
words and kind deeds to the boy, and that the son, 
though he should live to be old and gray-headed, will al- 
ways hold in precious remembrance her tender service 
to his mother. To that old saint whom I used to see 
stealing across lots to carry food and clothing to needy 
homes, and entering the back doors of those homes with 
many apologies for his intrusion, my acknowledgments 
for his beautiful lesson ! To that kind woman who had 
a large family of boisterous boys, and who not only 
understood that boys had good appetites, but that they 
particularly liked to gratify them on the night after the 
annual Thanksgiving, and found attractions at her house 
superior to any other in the neighborhood, I assume the 
privilege of returning the thanks of at least twenty men 



John Smith Jones. 287 

besides myself. And to him who took a young man's 
hand in trouble, and giving him his faith and the voice 
of his encouragement, and sacrificing something and 
risking much, helped him over the hardest spot of his 
life into the fields of life's successes, my reverence ! 

Ah ! my good neighbors ! I did not dream how 
numerous you were until I undertook to recall you. 
Throughout all my life you have formed the circle next 
to that which sits around my heart. I have exchanged 
my morning greeting with you,- have walked to the house 
of God with you, have met you at your tables and in my 
own home, have shared with you the work of neighborly 
charity ; and, ever since I can remember, some of the 
constant pleasures of my life have come to me from you. 
In the days of darkness your gentle rap was at my door, 
your whispered inquiry was constant, your proffered ser- 
vice was always at hand. And when the little form was 
carried out to be laid under the flowers, there were 
fairer flowers upon his bosom that came from you than 
have ever grown above it since. You are my brothers 
and my sisters, to whom I feel bound by a tie almost as 
sweet and precious as that which binds me to those who 
fill my home. 

Exactly how this rhapsody will strike Mr. John Smith 
Jones I cannot tell. I do not think that he has ever 
looked to see whether he could identify himself with 
those of my neighbors whom I have endeavored to re- 
call. It seems to me that he must be conscious that he 



288 Concerning the Jones Family. 

is different in most respects from his neighbors. He 
must be aware that most people are good neighbors 
among themselves, as most people are affectionate 
parents. The neighborly instinct is as universal as the 
parental. Let so much as this, at least, be said for hu- 
man nature : that, without respect to creed or culture, 
men and women are, in the main, good neighbors. I 
have never yet seen the place where the offices of good 
neighborhood were lacking. There is not only the neigh- 
borly instinct engaged in this thing, but there is a uni- 
versal personal pride that fills out where the instinct fails. 

It is generally understood and felt that for one neighbor 

t 
to help another in trouble, and for one neighbor to make 

the path of another pleasant, are forever fit and good 
things. This being recognized, it is felt that a gentle- 
man will do that which is fit and good, and that to fail 
in neighborly well-doing is to fail to prove one's self a 
gentleman. I think I know many supremely selfish 
men who are always spoken of as good neighbors. They 
have a sense of that which is fit and good. They feel 
that no person who pretends to be a gentleman will fail 
to do that which is fit and good with relation to his 
neighbors. They feel that neighborhood imposes cer- 
tain duties upon them which they must perform or lose 
caste, not only with others, but with themselves. They 
feel that it is not respectable to be a bad neighbor. 

I suppose there may be some neighborhoods in the 
world that have no bad neighbor in them, but nearly 



John Smith Jones. 289 

always, though many are right, there is one individual 
in the wrong. Very few are the neighborhoods in which 
there is not one person who is a bad neighbor. In his 
neighborhood, Mr. John Smith Jones is that neighbor. 
He is always in a quarrel with somebody about a fence. 
He is always very much afraid that somebody has en- 
croached upon his line. He keeps a miserable dog that 
worries all the horses that pass his house, and renders it 
next to impossible for anybody, except a courageous man 
armed with a cane, to enter his door. He keeps hens 
that enter the gardens of his neighbors, and scratch up 
seeds, and rip open tomatoes, and wallow in flower-beds, 
and make a nuisance of themselves from May until No- 
vember, leaving nobody in their vicinity in quiet posses- 
sion of his premises. Mr. Jones will not take care of his 
sidewalk in the winter, and I have thought that he takes 
a malicious satisfaction in hearing his neighbors curse 
him as they hobble over the ice in front of his house. 
He will join with his neighbors in no effort for beautify- 
ing his street. His consciousness that he deserves ill of 
his neighbors leads him to suppose that they are all 
banded against him, and, shutting himself into his 
own castle, he looks out upon the little world of neigh- 
bors around him in defiance, and full of the spirit of 
mischief. He does not care how much he annoys 
them. He would feel uncomfortable if he did not annoy 
them ; and, though his dog and his hens are a perpetual 
plague to them, let but a pet rabbit stray into his 
13 



290 Concerning the Jones Family. 

enclosure, and down comes his musket and the pet rab- 
bit dies. 

How far he is to be blamed for this it is impossible to 
say. I have no doubt that it is a legitimate apology for 
him to say that nature did not endow him with the 
neighborly instinct. There is really something lacking 
in him in this respect, and, so far as this want exists, 
there is an excuse for him. There is a lack in his 
nature still further than this. He is not sensitive to feel 
how everlastingly disgraceful it is to him to be at vari- 
ance with his neighbors, and to do those things which 
must necessarily make them dislike him. I suppose 
that if this paper arrests his attention, he will put in the 
further plea, or, disregarding my apologies for him, put 
in the exclusive plea, that his neighbors are quarrel- 
some, and interfere with him. Let me say in reply to 
this that I do not believe the man can be found who is 
always at variance with his neighbors, who is not him- 
self blamable for it. I know men who are accounted 
good husbands, good parents, and good men — perhaps 
religious men — who are notorious as uncomfortable 
neighbors. I know men of irreproachable morals of 
whom I never heard a neighbor speak a kind word. In 
such cases the blame attaches to the unloved person 
always ; and if any man who may read these words, 
feels that, as a neighbor, he is not loved, let him take 
home to himself the conviction that he is a sinner, and 
that when he shall be reformed his neighborhood will be 



John Smith Jones. 291 

reformed. Quarrelsome neighbors are invariably little- 
minded persons. A really noble mind never quarrels. 
A really noble man or woman is never complained of as 
a bad neighbor. 

I think Mr. Jones is a worse neighbor than he was 
when he was less prosperous. Poverty not unfrequently 
makes an excellent neighbor and an excellent neighbor- 
hood. When men and women are engaged in a strug- 
gle for bread, and are obliged to depend upon mutual 
assistance in sickness and the various emergencies of 
life, they are very apt to be good neighbors. When Mr. 
Jones was poor he was a tolerably good neighbor, not- 
withstanding his want of the neighborly instinct and 
other noble qualities ; but since he became an inde- 
pendent man, all his show of a neighborly disposition 
has vanished. The sense of independence has isolated 
him, and given his selfish pride the opportunity to assert 
and maintain its full sway over his little spirit. His 
house is in every sense his castle. It stands as coldly 
and as lonely in the midst of the neighborhood, and 
seems as thoroughly barred against neighborly ap- 
proach, as that of Sir Launfal, that 

"Alone in the landscape lay- 
Like an outpost of winter, dull and gray." 

His fences are high ; his screens are broad ; and be- 
hind these he sits, and self- complacently makes faces at 
the world. If he borrows of nobody, nobody borrows 



292 Concerning the Jones Family. 

of him. Nobody goes near him, and he has abundant 
time to indulge in the selfish contemplation of his inde- 
pendence. 

After all, is not this a small and miserable kind of 
life ? Does it satisfy him ? I am prepared to hear that 
it does, but it would gratify me much to know that he is 
not so utterly selfish as to be contented with it. Are 
there no times when he longs for neighborly sympathy — 
when the face of a loving and kind neighbor looking in 
at his door, bent upon some office of good-will, or even 
asking a favor, would seem delightful to him ? If such 
times ever come, then is he not only saveable but worth 
saving. Sooner or later the time must come to every 
man who is worth saving, when he will feel that life has 
no genuine satisfaction outside of the love and respect 
of those who are around him. Our only satisfying life 
is in the hearts of others. He may content himself with 
his family — for the sake of holding the respect of his 
family — he must sometimes long for the love and re- 
spect of his neighbors. No despised and hated man, 
conscious that he has legitimately earned the dislike in 
which he is held, can long maintain his self-respect ; 
and when this breaks down, even the worst nature will 
cry out for help. It must be that there are times when 
it would be a great relief to him to do a neighbor a favor 
for the asking. 

I do not question the sincerity of his belief that he 
has very bad neighbors. I do not doubt that he hon- 



John Smith Jones. 293 

estly considers them the worst and meanest men that 
ever constituted a neighborhood. I have no doubt that 
they have shown the worst and meanest side to him, and 
that, if the men were to be judged exclusively by the 
aspect which they have presented to him, their pictures 
would not be flattering. But he should remember that 
his position and his words and acts have only been cal- 
culated to call forth that which is evil in them. They 
have shown their worst side to him, because he has 
shown only his worst side to them. He has provoked 
their indifference, their insolence, their petty revenges, 
their spiteful remarks, their cold rebuffs, and all their 
unneighborly doings. What there is of evil in them 
they show to him, because he has been only a bad 
neighbor to them. Suppose when he first entered his 
neighborhood he had been a generous, kind-hearted, 
neighborly man, opening his house and heart to those 
around him, entering their houses, and in every possible 
way showing good feeling toward them, and doing good 
through various schemes of improvement ; does he 
think he would have seen anything of this unpleasant 
side of which he now complains ? If he has common 
sense, he knows that all his neighbors would have shown 
him nothing but good-will, and that he would have been 
loved and honored. 

Now this good side of his neighbors, which I see and 
he does not, he must find. He can find it, and, though 
for various reasons it may seem to him now that not 



294 Concerning the Jones Family. 

one of them is amiable, he may learn that there is not 
one of them who is not more worthy to be loved than he 
is. How is it that they love and respect one another, 
while none of them love and respect him ? Why is it 
that he is selected as the object of their united dislike ? 
It is because he is the meanest man in the neighbor- 
hood, and yet he has times of believing himself abused, 
and of considering himself the only decent man among 
them all. He feels that there is something in him that 
is lovable, and that that something ought to be loved. 
That something which his wife has found, which his 
children have found, which his father found years ago, 
should, he feels, secure the love and good-will of his 
neighbors. Is he the only man of all his neighborhood 
who has lovable qualities that are hidden ? All these 
men whom he has dome to regard as bad neighbors are 
a good deal more lovable than he is, and they show 
their unlovely side to him simply because he has shown 
his unlovely side to them. Let him show the best part 
of his nature to them, and he will be astonished to see 
how quickly they will become lovely to him, through the 
exhibition of excellencies whose existence has been 
hitherto hidden from him. He has never shown any- 
thing but his hateful side to them, and it is very stupid 
of him to suppose that they will love that. 

I imagine that this kind of talk will do him very little 
good, but there are two motives which I can present to 
him that he can measure, and that, I am sure, will com- 



Jo Jin Smitli Jones. 295 

mend themselves to his consideration. With all his 
meanness he is proud, and he feels that there is some- 
thing admirable in manliness. Now his position as a 
neighbor is not a manly one, but it is inexpressibly 
childish. Is he a man, and does he shut himself within 
the lines of his possessions, and quarrel about fences 
and lines of boundary and encroachments ? Is he a 
man, and does he rejoice in making himself offensive to 
those around him by petty annoyances ? Is he a man, 
and does he stand ready to pounce upon any unlucky 
child or pet of his neighbors the moment it enters his 
enclosure ? Does he call such things manly ? Is he not 
ashamed of his childishness? The real man is noble. 
He will himself suffer inconvenience rather than annoy 
his neighbor ; he will suffer wrong rather than betray a 
small spirit of revenge ; he will not permit himself to be 
degraded by a quarrel that can be avoided by any 
generous and self-denying act. By acts of justice and 
generosity, he will compel the respect of his neighbors 
and vindicate his claim to manliness. He has moral 
vision enough left to see all this, and sensibility, I hope, 
to feel that a mean neighbor is no man, but only a child- 
ish imitation of one. 

The second motive which I present to him is more 
selfish even than the first, and for that reason he can 
appreciate it better. A bad neighbor has no influence. 
No man can move society in any direction who has lost 
his hold upon those who are around him. Mr. Jones 



2g6 Concerning the Jones Family. 

has isolated himself, and he reaps the consequences in 
his loss of influence. He is without power upon the 
world. With all his fancied independence, and with all 
the power which money gives him, there is not a man 
who would permit himself to be moved by him. He 
must become a good neighbor if he would win power 
over v others for any purpose. As it is, he is counted out 
of every ring, and has no power to call a ring around 
himself. 

I wish I could at least make him and every other 
man who reads these words feel that an unpleasant 
neighbor is a nuisance. There is no good reason why 
the word " neighborhood " should not be as sweet and 
suggestive and sacred a word as " family." A neighbor- 
hood is a congeries of homes, and the home spirit of 
love and mutual adaptation and mutual help and har- 
mony should prevail in it. Home life itself is incom- 
plete without good neighborhood life, and every man 
who poisons the latter is the enemy of every home af- 
fected by his act, 



GOODRICH JONES, JR. 

CONCERNING HIS DISPOSITION TO BE C0NTEN7 
WITH THE RESPECTABILITY AND WEALTH 
WHICH HIS FATHER HAS ACQUIRED FOR HIM. 

THE father of Goodrich Jones, Jr., by a life of integ- 
rity and close and skilful application to business 
has made for himself a good reputation in the world, 
and become what the world calls rich. He lives in a 
good house, moves in good society, commands for his 
family all desirable luxuries of dress and equipage, and 
holds a position which places him upon an equality with 
the greatest and best. He began humbly, if I am cor- 
rectly informed, and won his eminence by the force of 
his own life and character. I honor him. I count him 
worthy of the respect of every man, and I find myself 
disposed to treat his family with respect on his account 
— for his sake. This feeling toward his family, which I 
find springing up spontaneously within myself, seems to 
be quite universal. The world bows to the family of 
the venerable Goodrich Jones — bows, not to Mrs. Jones, 
particularly, as a respectable woman, but to the wife of 
13* 



298 Concerning the Jo?ies Family. 

Goodrich Jones — bows, not to his children as young 
men and women of intelligence and good morals, but as 
young people who are to be treated with more than or- 
dinary courtesy because they are the children of the 
rich and respectable Goodrich Jones. 

This feeling of the world toward Mr. Goodrich Jones' 
family is very natural. It is a tribute of respect to a 
worthy old gentleman, and, so far as he is concerned, is 
one of the natural rewards of his life of industry and in- 
tegrity. I notice, however, that the family of Mr. Jones 
have come to look upon these tributes of respect to 
them on account of Mr. Jones, as quite the proper and 
regular thing, and to feel that they are really worthy of 
special attention, because Mr. Jones commands it for 
himself. Instead of feeling a little humiliated by the 
consciousness that they are treated with special polite- 
ness, not because they are particularly brilliant, or rich, 
or well-bred, but because they are the family of a rich 
and respectable man they are inclined to feel proud of 
it. How they manage to be vain of respectability and 
wealth won for them by somebody besides themselves 
I do not know ; but I suppose their case is not singular. 
Indeed I know that the world is full of such cases, 
many of which would be ridiculous were they not pitiful. 

The thought that Goodrich Jones, Jr., is the son of 
Goodrich Jones, and that he bears his name, seems to 
form the basis of his estimate of himself. I have already 
given the reason why the world treats him respectfully, 



Goodrich Jones, Jr. 299 

but that reason need not necessarily be identical with 
that which leads him to respect himself. If, owing to 
some circumstance or agency beyond his control, he 
were to be suddenly stripped of all his ready money and 
other resources, and set down in some distant city 
among strangers, what would be his first impulse ? 
Would he go to work, and try to make a place for him- 
self? Would he be willing to pass for just what he is — 
to be estimated for just what there is in him of the ele- 
ments of manhood — or would he endeavor to convince 
everybody that he was the son of a certain very rich and 
respectable Goodrich Jones, and try to secure consider- 
ation for himself upon such representation ? I presume 
he would pursue the same policy among strangers that 
he pursues among friends. He has never made an ef- 
fort to be respected for works or personal merits of his 
pwn. He pushes himself forward everywhere as the son 
of Goodrich Jones — indeed as Goodrich Jones, Jr. He has 
not only been content to live in the shadow of his father's 
name, but he has been apparently anxious to invite public 
attention to the fact that he does. He has not only been 
content to live upon money which his father has made, 
but he seems delighted to have it understood that he can 
draw upon him for all he wants. He seems to have no 
ambition to make either reputation or money for himself. 
On the contrary, I think he would look upon it as dis- 
graceful for him to engage in business for the purpose 
of winning wealth by labor. 



300 Co7icerning the Jones Family. 

Now will he permit one who has frequently bowed to 
him for his father's sake, to talk very plainly to him for 
his own ? Let me assure him, in the first place, that all 
this respect which the world shows to him is unsubstan- 
tial and unreliable. The man who treats him with re- 
spect because his father is rich, would cease to treat him 
with respect if that father were to become poor. The 
man who bows to him because his father occupies high 
social position, would pass him without recognition were 
his father, for any reason, to lose that position. Let me 
assure him that the world does not care for him any fur- 
ther than he is the partaker of the money and the respect- 
ability which have been achieved by his father. Nay, I 
will go further, and say that, side by side with the defer- 
ence which it shows for him on his father's account, it 
cherishes a certain contempt for one who is willing to 
receive his position at second-hand. He cannot com- 
plain of this, for he places his claims for social consider- 
ation entirely on his father's position. The negro slave 
is proud of the superior wealth of his master, and among 
his fellow slaves assumes a superior position in conse- 
quence of wealth which is not his own. He belongs to a 
splendid establishment, and, in his own eyes, wins im- 
portance from the association. When his master fails, 
the slave sinks. No, there is nothing reliable in this 
consideration of the world for Goodrich Jones, Jr. He 
is only treated as a representative of the wealth and re- 
spectability of another man, and if Goodrich Jones were 



Goodrich Jones, Jr. 301 

to become displeased with him, and were to disown and 
disinherit him, he would find himself without a friend in 
the world. 

In the second place, his position is an unmanly one. 
None but a mean man can be willing to hold his position 
at second-hand. I count him fortunate who is born to 
pleasant and good social relations, and all the advantages 
which they bring him for the development of his personal 
character ; but I count him most unfortunate, who, born 
to such relations, is willing to hold them as a birthright 
alone. A man who is willing to keep a place in society 
which his father has given him, through his father's con- 
tinued influence, is necessarily mean-spirited and con- 
temptible. Every young man of a manly spirit who 
finds himself in good society through the influence of 
others, will prove his right to the place, and hold the 
place by his own merits. No man of the age of Good- 
rich Jones, Jr., can consent to hold his social position 
solely through the influence of his father without con- 
victing himself either of imbecility or meanness. If he 
has any genuine self-respect, he feels that to own to 
others what he is capable of winning for himself, and to 
be considered only as a portion of a rich and respectable 
man's belongings, is a disgrace to his manhood. 

I suppose the thought has never occurred to him that 
he owes something to his father for what his father has 
done for him. His father gave him position. His fa- 
ther's name shielded him through all his childhood 



302 Concerning the Jones Family. 

and youth from many of the dangers and disadvantages 
which other young men are forced to encounter. He 
gave him great vantage ground in the work of life, and 
he owes it to him to improve it. If his father's name 
helps him, he ought to do something for his name. If 
his father honors him, he ought to honor his father, and 
to do as much for his father's name as his father has 
done for his. He has no moral right to disgrace one 
who has done so much for him ; for his father's reputa- 
tion is partly in his keeping. It would be an everlasting 
disgrace to the father to bring up a boy who relied solely 
upon him for respectability. It would be a blot upon his 
reputation to have a son so mean as to be content with a 
name and fortune at second-hand. He must change his 
plan and course of life, or people will talk more and 
more of his unworthiness to stand in his father's shoes, 
and express their wonder more and more that so sensi- 
ble and industrious a father could train a son so ineffi- 
ciently as he has trained him. When this good father 
of his shall die, he will be thrown more upon himself. 
He will have money, I presume, and he will still sit in 
the comfortable shadow of his father's name ; but the 
world changes, and strangers will estimate him at his 
true value, and those who knew his father will only talk 
of the sad contrast between the father's character and 
his own. 

I suppose that he is not above the desire for the good- 
will of the world. Well, the world is made up of work- 



Goodrich Jones, Jr. 303 

ers. The great mass of men — and his father is among 
the number — are obliged to depend upon their own 
labor and their own force and excellence of character 
for wealth and position. People do not envy him, be- 
cause he won all that he possesses by his own skill and 
industry. He is universally admired and esteemed, and 
he is enjoying some of the fruits of this admiration and 
esteem in the politeness of the world toward himself; 
but this will not always last. His son must mingle in 
the world's work, and cast in his lot with his fellows, con- 
tributing his share of labor and, taking what comes of 
it in pelf and position, or else he will be voted out of the 
pale of popular sympathy. The world does not love 
drones, and he must cease to be a drone or it will never 
love him. 

I suppose it is hard for him to realize that he is not 
the object of envy among men, but I wish he could for 
once feel the contempt which his parisitic position ex- 
cites, even among men whom he deems beneath his 
notice. There are many young men who have been 
compelled to labor all their lives for bread, who would 
shrink from exchanging places with him as from a loath- 
some disgrace. They would not take his idle habits, his 
foppish tastes, his childish spirit, and his reputation, for 
all his father's money, and these men, strange as it may 
seem to his mean spirit, are more respected and better 
loved by the world than himself. I say that he is not 
above the desire for the good-will of the world, but, if 



304 Concerning the Jones Family. 

he would get it, he must be a man. He must show that 
he has a man's spirit, and that he is willing to do a man's 
work. No idle man ever yet lived upon the wealth won 
for him by others and at the same time enjoyed the love 
of the world. 

All this he will find out by and by without my telling 
him, but then it may be too late for remedy. He is now 
young, but, if he lives, he will come at length to realize 
that, instead of being envied he is despised. He will 
make a sadder discovery too, than this. He will dis- 
cover that he has as little basis for self-respect as for 
popular regard. Years cannot fail to reveal to him some 
things which youth hides from him. He will find that 
the world is busy, that he has no one to spend his time 
with, and that the men who have power and public con- 
sideration are men who have something to do besides 
killing time and spending money. He will find that he 
is without sympathy and companionship among the best 
people, and when he ascertains the reason — for it will be 
so obvious that he cannot fail to see it — he will learn 
that he is not worthy of their sympathy and companion- 
ship. In short, he will learn to despise himself. 

I have already spoken to him of the debt which he 
owes to his father, for what his father has done for him. 
There are some further considerations relating to his 
family which I wish to offer. A family name and repu- 
tation are things of life and growth. The character 
which his father has made is a product of life, so grand 



Goodrich Jones, Jr. 305 

and far-spreading that his family sits beneath and is 
sheltered by it. It is the law of all vital products that 
they shall grow, or hold their ground against encroach- 
ment, by what they feed upon. Food must be constant, 
or death is sure to come soon or late. The character 
of his family — its power, position, and high relations — is 
the product of his father's vital force, working in various 
ways. Not many years hence that force must stop its 
work. His father will die, and unless he takes up his 
work and does it, this family character will pine and 
dwindle, and ultimately sink in utter decay. 

Let Goodrich Jones, Jr., look around him and see how 
some of the rich and influential old families have died 
out because there was no men in them to keep them 
alive. The founder of the family did what he could, 
raised his family to the highest social position, gave them 
wealth, bequeathed to them a good name, and died. 
The sons who followed were not worthy of him. They 
were not men. They were babies who were willing to 
live upon their family name, and who did live upon it 
until they consumed it. It is sad to see a family name 
fade out as it often does, through the failure of its men 
to feed it with the blood of a worthy life ; and his will 
fade out in a single generation if he does not imme- 
diately prepare himself to take up his father's work and 
carry it on. It is always pleasant and inspiriting to see 
young men who expect to inherit money entering with 
energy upon the work of life, as if they had their fortunes 



306 Concerning the Jones Family. 

to make. It proves that they are men, and proves that 
they are preparing to handle usefully the money that is 
to come into their hands. It proves that they intend to 
win respect for themselves, and to lay, at least, the foun- 
dation of their own fortunes. When I see such men, I 
feel that the name of their families is safe in their keep- 
ing, and that, for at least one generation, those families 
cannot sink. The desire to be somebody besides some- 
body's son, shows a manly disposition which the world at 
once recognizes, and to which it freely opens its heart. 

I am aware that a young man in young Jones' position 
has great temptations, and labors under great disad- 
vantages. We are in the habit of regarding a poor 
young man who has neither family name nor influence 
as laboring under disadvantages, and in some aspects of 
his case we regard him rightly. But he has certainly 
the advantage of the stimulus which obstacles to be over- 
come afford. The poor man sees that he must make 
his own fortune, or that his fortune will not be made at 
all ; and the obstacles that lie before him only stimulate 
him to labor with the greater efficiency. When I see a 
poor young man bravely accepting his lot, and patiently 
and heroically applying himself to the work of building 
a fortune and achieving a position, I am moved to thank 
God for his poverty, for I know that in that poverty he 
will ultimately discover the secret of his best successes. 

The disadvantage of Goodrich Jones, Jr., is, that posi- 
tion and wealth have already been won for him. It is 



Goodrich Jones, Jr. 307 

not necessary for him to labor to get bread and clothing 
and a comfortable home. These have been won for him 
by other hands. I do not deny that this condition of 
things is naturally enervating. I confess that it takes 
much good sense and an unusual degree of manliness to 
resist the temptations to idleness which it brings ; but he 
must resist them or suffer the saddest consequences. He 
must labor in a steady, manly way to make his own place 
in the world, as a fitting preparation for the husbandry 
and enjoyment of the wealth which will some day be his. 
If he has not those considerations in his favor which 
stimulate the poor man to exertion, then he must adopt 
such as I have tried to present to him. He must re- 
member that to be content with a position received at 
second-hand, and to live simply to spend the money 
earned by others, is most unmanly. He must remem- 
ber that he owes it to his father, and to his family name 
and fame, to keep his family in the position of considera- 
tion and influence in which his father has placed it, and 
that it is certain to recede from that position unless he 
does. He must remember that only by work can he 
win the good-will of the world around him, or win and 
retain respect for himself. 

If the disadvantages of his position are great, his re- 
ward for worthy work is also great. The world always 
recognizes the strength of the temptations which attach 
to the position of a rich young man, and awards to him 
a peculiar honor for that spirit which refuses to be re- 



308 Concerning the Jones Family. 

spected for anything but his own manliness. I know of 
no young men who hold the good-will of the public more 
thoroughly than* those who set aside all temptations to 
indolence and indulgence which attend wealth, and put 
themselves heartily to the work of deserving the social 
position to which they are born, and of earning the 
bread which a father's wealth has already secured. He 
has but to will and to work, and this beautiful reward 
will be his. 



THE END. 



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